U.S. Army 
Counterinsurgency 
and Contingency 
Operations Doctrine 


1942-1976 




ANDREW J.BIRTLE 















U.S. Army 

Counterinsurgency and 
Contingency 
Operations Doctrine 
1942-1976 


by 

Andretv J. Birtle 



CENTER OF MILITAR Y HISTOR Y 
UNITED STATES ARMY 
WASHINGTON, D.C., 2006 









Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Birtle, A. J. (Andrew James) 

U.S. Army counterinsurgency and contingency operations doctrine, 
1942-1976 / by Andrew J. Birtle. 
p. cm. 

Includes bibliographical references and index. 

1. Counterinsurgency—United States—History—20th century. 2. 
United States. Army. I. Title. 

U241.B52 2006 

355.4’25—dc22 2006020046 


CMH Pub 70-98-1 


First Printing 


For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 
Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 


ISBN 0-16-072959-9 







Foreword 


In recent years the U.S. Army has been heavily engaged in per¬ 
forming counterinsurgency and nation-building missions in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, and elsewhere. These undertakings, together with recent 
operations in Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans, have kindled a strong 
interest in the Army’s past experiences in combating irregulars and 
restoring order overseas. In response, the Center has commissioned its 
historians to take a close look at the evolution of counterinsurgency and 
related doctrine in the U.S. Army. This volume, covering 1942 to 1976, 
is the second volume representing that effort. 

During the third quarter of the twentieth century, powerful politi¬ 
cal and socioeconomic forces created instability in many countries. 
Watching international communism exploiting such situations, the 
United States mobilized its resources to fight Communist subversion 
as part of a post-World War II global “Cold War.” While recognizing 
the underlying problems that made societies vulnerable to Communist 
exploitation, the U.S. Army played a central role in executing all 
aspects of this policy. It furnished counterguerrilla training, advice, and 
assistance to foreign armies and police forces. It occupied conquered or 
unstable countries, organized governments, and supplied men, money, 
and materiel to help allied nations redress the socioeconomic and polit¬ 
ical conditions that American policy makers believed fostered unrest. 
And when necessary, it fought Communist insurgents, guerrillas, and 
even regular forces employed in irregular roles. 

The Cold War is over and the threat posed by communism much 
diminished. However, the conditions that can fuel civil unrest and 
insurrection are still with us and will probably always be features 
of human affairs. Soldiers, diplomats, politicians, and analysts will 
thus benefit from learning about how the U.S. Army has historically 
approached such problems and the successes and failures that those 
ventures have met. Although every historical event is unique, many of 
the issues and challenges involved in such actions are as relevant today 
as they were in the past. By examining evolving Army doctrine, train¬ 
ing, and field operations, this work provides an in-depth look at how 
our institution performed its counterinsurgency and nation-building 
responsibilities during a previous era of global instability, experiences 


m 


that might well shed some needed light on the work that must be done 
today and tomorrow. 


Washington, D.C. 
15 September 2006 


JEFFREY J. CFARKE 
Chief of Military History 


The Author 


Andrew J. Birtle received a B.A. degree in history from Saint 
Lawrence University in 1979 and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in military 
history from Ohio State University in 1981 and 1985, respectively. He 
worked for the U.S. Air Force as a historian for approximately three 
years before joining the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 1987. 
He has written several articles, pamphlets, and monographs; a book on 
the rearmament of West Germany; and U.S. Army Counterinsurgency 
and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 1860-1941 , the companion 
volume to this study. He is currently working on a volume concerning 
U.S. Army activities in Vietnam between 1961 and 1965. 


v 




























Preface 


Stability operations , nation building , and counterinsurgency, these 
are all phrases that are very much in the news today as the United States 
and its allies attempt to bring peace and order to troubled places like 
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. None of these terms are new. They all 
originated over forty years ago, when the United States wrestled with an 
earlier era of global instability. Although the causes of foreign unrest, the 
nature of the threat, and the circumstances under which the United States 
has attempted to address those challenges are different today than they 
were several decades ago, many of the fundamental issues associated 
with such phenomena remain the same. Indeed, readers of this study and 
its predecessor volume, US. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency 
Operations Doctrine, 1860-1941 , will find many points of similarity 
in how the U.S. Army has dealt with counterinsurgency, constabulary, 
and limited contingency situations in the past. The reasons for these 
similarities and the principles that form the core of American doctrine 
are described in the book. The volume also examines the nature of coun¬ 
terinsurgency and nation-building missions, the institutional obstacles 
inherent in dealing effectively with such operations, and the strengths and 
weaknesses of U.S. doctrine, including the problems that can occur when 
that doctrine morphs into dogma. Readers should remember, however, 
that while many threads of continuity exist there are also developments 
that have no parallel. Continuity and change are the twin muses of histo¬ 
ry. No two situations are identical, and the fact that something happened 
in one instance does not mean it will occur in another. This is particularly 
true with regard to the subject matter of this book, as a plethora of politi¬ 
cal, socioeconomic, cultural, environmental, and military factors give 
each counterinsurgency, nation-building, and contingency operation a 
unique hue. The vagaries of these types of operations encumber both the 
historian and the doctrine writer. Consequently, writers and readers alike 
should always bear in mind that history, like military doctrine, is not an 
exact science, nor does it have determinative or predictive powers. It is 
an interpretive art that explains the past, helps us understand the present, 
and provides insights that may assist us in wrestling with the inevitable 
challenges of the future. Hopefully this volume accomplishes all three 
goals. 


Many people, far too many to name, assisted in the production of 
this volume. I would like to extend a general word of appreciation to the 
staffs of the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library 
of Congress, the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH), the 
U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI), and the Pentagon, Infantry 
School, and Command and General Staff College libraries. Individuals 
worthy of special mention are Wilbert Mahoney of the National 
Archives; Richard J. Sommers, David Keough, and Pamela Cheney 
at MHI; and at CMH, Graham Cosmas, Mary Gillett, James Knight, 
and Geraldine Harcarik. I would also like to recognize the members 
of the Center’s Publishing Division who transformed the manuscript 
into a book: Keith Tidman, Beth MacKenzie, S. L. Dowdy, and Teresa 
Jameson. Contractor Anne Venzon created the index. I am especially 
grateful to Diane Sedore Arms, whose expert editing greatly improved 
the quality of the work. Thanks also go to the scholars who reviewed 
all or portions of the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions: 
Stephen Bowman, Jeffrey Clarke, Robert Doughty, Paul Herbert, Joel 
Meyerson, Allan Millett, Richard Stewart, and Lawrence Yates. Finally, 

I would like to thank my parents and my wife, without whose support 
this work would not have been possible. 

Though many people contributed to this volume, the author alone 
is responsible for all interpretations and conclusions, as well as for any 
errors that may appear. 


Washington, D.C. 

15 September 2006 


ANDREW J. BIRTLE 


Contents 


Chapter p a ^ e 

1. Introduction . 3 

Terms and Their Relevance . 3 

Early Doctrine, World War II, and Postwar Occupations . 8 

Guerrillas, Civilians, and the Geneva Convention of 1949 .... 19 

The Army and the Challenges of the Postwar World . 21 

2. The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 .. 31 

The Chinese Civil War, 1945-1949 . 31 

The Greek Insurgency, 1945-1949 . 42 

The Philippine Insurgency, 1945-1955 . 55 

The Indochina War, 1945-1954 . 66 

3. The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 . 85 

Occupation and Advice, 1945-1950 . 85 

South Korean Counterguerrilla Operations in an 

Expanded War, 1950-1954 . 98 

U.S. Army Counterguerrilla Operations, 1950-1953 . 102 

Assessment . 116 

The Truman-Era Counterinsurgencies in Retrospect . 117 

4. The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 

1945-1960 . 131 

Sources of Doctrine . 132 

FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces. 134 

The Evolution of Army Doctrinal Literature, 1951-1958 . 142 

Counterinsurgency in the Educational and Training Systems. . . 151 

The Resurgence of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1958-1960. . . 157 

5. Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 . 183 

Lebanon, 1958 . 183 

The Emergence of Doctrine for “Situations Short of War ” . 190 

Doctrine at Work: Thailand and the Dominican Republic . 199 

Doctrine in the Aftermath of the Dominican Intervention . 212 


IX 

























Chapter Page 

6. The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 . 223 

Kennedy and the Army . 223 

Sources of Doctrine . 229 

The Doctrine Development System . 231 

The Evolution of Doctrine, 1961-1964 . 234 

The Development of Doctrine, 1964-1965 . 250 

Disseminating Doctrine: The Education System . 257 

Disseminating Doctrine: The Training System . 266 

The State of Affairs, 1965 . 276 

7. Putting Doctrine to the Test: The Advisory Experience, 

1955-1975 . 291 

The Latin American Experience . 291 

Advice and Support in Vietnam . 304 

The Asian Experience Outside Indochina . 328 

The Advisory Experience in Retrospect . 344 

8. Doctrine Applied: The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973.. 361 

Strategy . 362 

Operational Concepts . 368 

Operational Practices . 372 

Organizational and Tactical Adaptations . 382 

Pacification . 387 

All the King’s Horses: The Army Experience in Vietnam . 405 

9. The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975. 419 

Words and Organizations . 420 

Doctrinal Developments, 1966-1967 . 424 

Reflections on Nation Building . 435 

Doctrinal Developments, 1968-1972 . 445 

Doctrinal Consolidation, 1972-1974 . 448 

Education . 455 

Training . 462 

The State of Doctrine at the End of the Vietnam War . 466 

10. The Counterinsurgency Legacy. 477 

The Great Retreat: Counterinsurgency in the 1970s . ATT 

The Evolution of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Retrospect. . . 484 

Select Bibliography. 499 


x 


































Page 

Glossary. 537 

In ^ex. 543 

Maps 

No. 

1. U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Activities, 

1942-1976. 6 

2. China, 1945. 34 

3. Greece, January 1949 . 43 

4. The Philippines, 1950. 57 

5. French Indochina, 1954 . 67 

6 . Korea, 1949. 87 

7. Southern Korea, 1949. 92 

8 . Lebanon, 1957 . 185 

9. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1965 . 206 

10. Central and South America, 1961. 293 

11. South Vietnam, 1965. 306 

12. Korea, 1966. 331 

13. Thailand, 1975 . 336 

Illustrations 

U.S. Soldiers Execute a German Guerrilla in the Closing Days 

of World War II. 9 

Captured “Werewolves” Like These Posed Little Danger During 

the Postwar Occupation of Germany. 10 

The U.S. Army School for Military Government. 14 

A U.S. Military Court Tries a German Civilian Charged 

with Illegally Possessing a Firearm . 16 

U.S. Soldiers Meet with Communist Guerrillas in an Attempt 

To Negotiate a Truce to the Chinese Civil War. 33 

Greek Soldiers Engage Communist Guerrillas. 45 

Lt. Gen. James A. Van Fleet and Greek Officials Inspect 

Government Troops. 47 

Greek Soldiers Assault a Guerrilla Bunker. 55 

Filipino Soldiers of the 7th Battalion Combat Team Search for 

Huk Guerrillas. 62 

Franco-Vietnamese Soldiers Search for Viet Minh Guerrillas 

in a Village in the Red River Delta. 69 


xi 



























Page 

Franco-Vietnamese Soldiers Parachute into Dien Bien Phu. 71 

A US. Army Adviser Helps a Korean Constabulary Officer 

Plan a Counterguerrilla Operation on Cheju-do. 90 

A U.S. Army Adviser to the Korean National Police Helps 

Display Captured Guerrilla Flags. 95 

Korean National Policemen Inspect Captured Guerrilla 

Weapons. 96 

A Korean Soldier Checks the Identity Papers of a Refugee. 99 

An Armored Railway Car Used by U.S. Military Police To 
Keep South Korea’s Railroad Lines Free of Guerrilla 

Interference. 104 

Soldiers from the 65th Infantry Bring in Captured Guerrillas.... 106 
An American Convoy Defends Itself Against a Guerrilla 

Ambush in the Korean Mountains . 107 

Special Activities Group Soldiers Engage Guerrillas. 110 

American and Korean Soldiers Deliver Food to Indigent 

Civilians. 112 

A Civil Affairs Soldier Organizes a Village Election. 113 

U.S. Soldiers Depart from a Village That They Have Set on 

Fire To Prevent Guerrillas from Using It. 115 

Lt. Col. Russell W. Volckmann. 133 

U.S. Army Cavalrymen Playing the Role of Mounted Guerrillas 

During a Counterguerrilla Training Exercise. 154 

“Guerrillas” Ambush an Unsuspecting Soldier During a 

Training Exercise. 156 

Soldiers Gain Their Bearings in Lebanon. 186 

An American and Lebanese Soldier Man a Joint Checkpoint .... 187 

A U.S. Tank Clears away an Insurgent Roadblock. 189 

General Maxwell D. Taylor Believed This Photo of a U.S. 

Soldier Riding a Burro Created Adverse Publicity for 

the Army. 191 

U.S. Soldiers Undergo Live-Fire Counterguerrilla Training in 

Thailand. 201 

Soldiers from the 27th Infantry Patrol the Thai-Laotian Border .. 202 
Residents of Santo Domingo Express Confusion over the 

Arrival of U.S. Troops. 204 

An American Checkpoint Controls the Movement of People 

Through Santo Domingo. 207 

A U.S. Soldier Watches a Manhole To Prevent the 
Constitutionalists from Moving Men and Supplies 
Through the Sewer System. 208 

xii 























Page 

A Soldier Distributes Milk to Civilians. 210 

Army Chief of Staff General George H. Decker Chats with 
Soldiers Who Were Playing the Role of Villagers During a 

Counterguerrilla Training Exercise. 226 

President John F. Kennedy Talks with Brig. Gen. William P. 

Yarborough. 228 

Classroom Instruction as Part of the Military Assistance 

Training Adviser Course. 258 

“Guerrillas’ 1 Maneuver During a Counterguerrilla Exercise. 270 

“Guerrilla” Mortarmen Emerge from Concealment During 

Vietnam-Oriented Training. 271 

Soldiers Search “Dead” Insurgents That They Have Just 

Ambushed During Training. 273 

Helicopter Shortages Meant That Soldiers Sometimes Had 

To Practice Airmobile Operations Using Mock-ups. 274 

Soldiers Enter a Mock Village During Counterguerrilla 

Training in Hawaii. 276 

With the Help of an Interpreter and Friendly Village Officials, 
an Army Patrol Interrogates Captured “Guerrillas” During 

Training. 277 

American and Ecuadorian Engineers Discuss a Road-Building 

Project as Part of the Alliance for Progress. 295 

Ecuadorian Villagers Try Out a New Water Pump Built for 

Them by U.S. Army and Ecuadorian Army Engineers. 295 

Nicaraguan Soldiers Take Part in a U.S.-Assisted Urban 

Counterterrorism Exercise. 297 

A U.S. Army Adviser Observes Guatemalan Soldiers Practice 

Riot Control Techniques. 297 

A U.S. Army Special Forces Adviser Discusses Tactics with 

Bolivian Troops Prior to a Counterguerrilla Operation. 301 

A U.S. Army Adviser Accompanies El Salvadoran Army 

Medics on a Medical Civic Action Initiative. 303 

An American Soldier Distributes Propaganda in Comic Book 

Form to Bolivian Children. 303 

South Vietnamese Troops Search for Insurgents. 308 

A U.S. Army Medic Treats a Vietnamese Child as Part of the 

Medical Civic Action Program . 318 

South Vietnamese Civilians Build Fortifications Around Their 

Hamlet. 320 

As in Many Insurgencies, War and Peace Shared an Uneasy 

Coexistence in South Vietnam. 322 


Xlll 























Page 


A South Vietnamese Army Cultural Drama Group Woos 
Villagers as Part of the Battle for the Hearts and Minds 

of the Population . 326 

U.S. Soldiers Patrol the Barrier Fence Bordering the Korean 

Demilitarized Zone. 332 

South Korean Troops Debark from a U.S. Army Helicopter 

During a Counterguerrilla Operation in South Korea. 333 

A Thai Mobile Development Unit Accompanied by an 

American Adviser Visits a Village . 338 

A U.S. Adviser Instructs Thai Soldiers in Counterguerrilla 

Warfare. 340 

U.S. Army Engineers Build a School in Thailand. 343 

General William C. Westmoreland Inspects Viet Cong 

Prisoners . 363 

A Viet Cong Prisoner, Wearing a Mask To Hide His Identity, 

Helps U.S. Troops Locate His Former Colleagues. 373 

Vietnam’s Terrain Posed Significant Challenges to 

Counterguerrilla Operations. 374 

A Member of a Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol. 377 

Airmobile Infantry Played a Central Role in U.S. 

Counterguerrilla Operations. 379 

Soldiers Teach English as Part of the Army’s Outreach Efforts 

in Vietnam. 388 

U.S. Infantrymen Search a Village. 391 

Soldiers Round Up Civilians as Part of a Village Search. 393 

A Vietnamese Policeman and an American Soldier Check 

Identities and Look for Contraband at a Joint Checkpoint ... 394 
U.S. Soldiers Forcibly Relocate Civilians from Their Village .... 395 
A U.S. Patrol Destroys Buildings Used by the Viet Cong 

in the Boi Loi Woods. 396 

Dental Services as Civic Action. 397 

A U.S. Soldier Helps Vietnamese Civilians Build a School . 398 

Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson. 421 

Members of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Undergo 

Counterinsurgency Training. 457 

West Point Cadets Search a Hut as Part of Counterguerrilla 

Training. 459 

“Guerrillas” Enter a Mock Viet Cong Village Used for 

Counterguerrilla Training. 460 

Troops Receiving Counterambush Instruction Prior to 

Deploying to Vietnam. 463 


xiv 
























Page 


Infantrymen Learning How To Locate and Search Viet Cong 


Tunnels During Training. 464 

A “Guerrilla” Sniper Takes Aim at a Patrol During 

Counterguerrilla Training. 466 


Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: cover and pp. 33, 
107, 322, 374, Army Art Collection; 9, 10, 14, 16, 62, 90, 95, 96, 99, 
104, 106, 110, 112, 113, 115, 154, 156, 186, 187, 189, 201,202, 204, 
207, 208, 210, 258, 270, 271, 273, 274, 276, 277, 295 ( top/bottom ), 297 
( top/bottom ), 301, 303 ( top/bottom ), 308, 318, 320, 326, 332, 333, 338, 
340, 343, 377, 379, 388, 391, 393, 396, 397, 398, 457, 459, 460, 463, 
464, 466, National Archives; 45, 47, 55, Library of Congress; 69, 71, 
226, 228, 363, 373, 394, 395, U.S. Army Military History Institute; 133, 
We Remained , by Russell Volckmann; 191, United Press International; 
and 421, U.S. Army Center of Military History. 


xv 















U.S.Army 

Counterinsurgency and 
Contingency 
Operations Doctrine 
1942-1976 





































































1 


Introduction 


Rarely do armies have the luxury of being able to prepare for only 
one mission. Although waging conventional war has always lain at the 
heart of the military profession, it has never been the soldier’s only, or 
even most frequently performed, role. Historically, U.S. soldiers have 
spent far more time performing a variety of constabulary, administra¬ 
tive, diplomatic, humanitarian, nation-building, and irregular warfare 
functions than they have fighting on the conventional battlefield. This 
work describes the evolution of U.S. Army doctrine for two of the 
many types of operations other than conventional warfare for which the 
Army had to prepare during the three decades that followed World War 
II—counterinsurgency and limited peacetime contingency operations. 

Terms and Their Relevance 

Fighting insurgents and intervening in the internal affairs of for¬ 
eign countries had long been missions performed by the Army, but 
after World War II these missions achieved heightened significance. 
The United States emerged from the war as a world leader with global 
interests and obligations. The outbreak of the Cold War magnified 
these burdens, as the threat of Communist subversion and the need for 
the United States to project military power into the internal affairs of 
foreign states led the Army to undertake a variety of counterinsurgency 
and constabulary missions. The extent of these missions, as well as 
the doctrinal confusion surrounding them, is illustrated by the plethora 
of terms employed to describe them. According to one student of the 
period, soldiers, policy makers, and civilian analysts coined more than 
fifty terms to describe the military’s many counterinsurgency func¬ 
tions, an estimate that is probably too low. Among them were such 


3 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


expressions as situations short of war, low intensity warfare, cold war 
operations, stability operations, subbelligerency operations, para-war, 
revolutionary (and counterrevolutionary ) war, guerrilla (and counter- 
guerrilla) war, internal defense and development, sublimited war, and 
most exotic of all, subliminal war .' 

Because of this extensive but confusing lexicon, a few defini¬ 
tions must be established. For the purposes of this book, the term 
counterinsurgency embraces all of the political, economic, social, and 
military actions taken by a government for the suppression of insur¬ 
gent, resistance, and revolutionary movements. The military’s role in 
counterinsurgency embraces two broad categories of activities: com¬ 
bat, frequently counterguerrilla in nature, and pacification. The latter 
encompasses a broad array of civil, administrative, and constabulary 
functions designed to establish or maintain governmental authority in 
an area that is either openly or potentially hostile. 

A contingency operation, according to the Department of Defense, 
is any military operation that is likely to result either in confrontations 
with an opposing force or the call-up of reserves. 2 Rather than attempt 
to cover all the many and disparate activities that could conceivably fit 
under the rubric of contingency operations, this work confines its dis¬ 
cussion to limited overseas missions undertaken in peacetime to restore 
order, quell an insurrection, bolster a friendly government, or otherwise 
serve as an instrument of American diplomacy short of engaging in 
full-scale hostilities. Limited contingency operations of this type share 
with counterinsurgency a number of features that allow the student of 
doctrine to consider them as a whole. First, the military frequently per¬ 
forms these missions in relatively underdeveloped areas, where trans¬ 
portation systems are often rudimentary and topographical and climatic 
conditions are difficult. Second, combat in such situations usually pits 
the Army against irregular or semiregular forces. Finally, and most 
important, political considerations play a crucial role in these activities 
at both the operational and tactical level. Not only is the close coordi¬ 
nation of political, diplomatic, and military measures crucial during 
both of these types of operations, but also the ultimate success of these 
missions often depends on the interaction of soldiers with indigenous 
civilian populations. Consequently, soldiers engaged in these activities 
must exercise political and diplomatic skills beyond the martial talents 
normally required on the conventional battlefield. 

One last term that must be defined is doctrine. For the purpose of 
this study, doctrine is that body of knowledge disseminated through 
officially approved publications, school curriculums, and textbooks 
that represents an army’s approach to war and the conduct of military 


4 


Introduction 


operations. Doctrine offers a distillation of experience, providing a 
guide to methods that have generally worked in the past and that are 
thought to be of some enduring utility. By providing a common ori¬ 
entation, language, and conceptual framework, doctrine helps soldiers 
navigate through the fog of war. 3 

Despite the importance of formal, written doctrine, informal doc¬ 
trines composed of custom, tradition, and accumulated experience 
often play just as significant a role in shaping the conduct of military 
operations as do officially codified precepts. Informal doctrines, con¬ 
cepts, and beliefs may be preserved and transmitted through a variety 
of mediums, including official and unofficial writings, curricular 
materials, conversations, and individual memories. This process, while 
somewhat haphazard and difficult to document, is particularly impor¬ 
tant given the fact that doctrinal developments generally occur in an 
evolutionary fashion in which experience is gradually distilled and 
codified, only to be eventually modified and replaced after new experi¬ 
ences have demonstrated shortcomings in existing precepts. This study, 
therefore, approaches the development of Army doctrine for counter¬ 
insurgency and contingency operations by examining the formal and 
informal evolution of Army thought and practice, both in the field and 
in the classroom. 

After taking a cursory look at the Army’s pre-World War II doctri¬ 
nal heritage and relevant wartime experiences, this volume describes 
the state of national and military affairs at the conclusion of World War 
II that would influence the development of Army doctrine. With the 
outbreak of the Cold War, the Army assumed the relatively new role 
of providing advice and assistance to friendly countries threatened by 
Communist subversive movements. The study goes on to examine how 
the Army performed this role in five countries—China, Greece, Korea, 
Indochina, and the Philippines—during the decade and a half that fol¬ 
lowed World War II. The Korean War, in which the Army moved from 
an advisory to a combatant role, will also be discussed, as will the doc¬ 
trinal writings that emerged during this period. The work then examines 
Army contingency operations in theory and, in the case of Lebanon 
and the Dominican Republic, in practice. By the early 1960s interest in 
counterinsurgency had reached a fever pitch. The volume describes how 
the Army responded to the counterinsurgency challenge in its manuals, 
its classrooms, and in the field, either directly in Vietnam or through 
a number of advisory missions around the globe. By the end of the 
Vietnam War both the nation and the Army had become disenchanted 
with overseas entanglements, and the study concludes by tracing the 
declining emphasis on counterinsurgency and limited contingency 


5 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



MapI 

operations in the Army’s doctrinal and educational systems by the mid- 
1970s. (Map 1 ) 

Counterinsurgency and contingency operations describe broad 
operational environments that involve many aspects of the military 
art, from tactics to unconventional warfare, logistics, transportation, 
military assistance, psychological operations, and civil affairs. Many 
of these subjects have doctrines and literatures of their own. This 
monograph covers only those aspects of Army doctrine that might play 
a role in conducting a counterinsurgency or peacetime contingency 


6 










Introduction 



operation. Rather, the study focuses only on those aspects that are 
uniquely tailored to the counterinsurgency and stability operations 
environment. Similarly, while the work examines selective episodes of 
American military advisory and operational activities, it is not meant 
to be a narrative history of the Army’s numerous overseas experiences 
since World War II. The many activities undertaken by the Army dur¬ 
ing this period require that the work be selective in its coveiage and 
incorporate only those facts necessary to provide the reader with suf¬ 
ficient background with which to understand the evolution of doctrine. 


7 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Readers who are interested in obtaining a more detailed understanding 
of the events touched upon in this book can find many resources in the 
footnotes and bibliography 

Early Doctrine, World War II, and Postivar Occupations 

Although counterinsurgency and contingency operations assumed 
a heightened significance for the Army during the Cold War, they were 
not new missions. Since the founding of the Republic, the Army had 
been called upon to undertake a wide range of irregular warfare, paci¬ 
fication, and constabulary assignments. From these experiences a body 
of formal and informal doctrine eventually evolved for the conduct of 
what the pre-World War II Army came to call small wars. Small wars, 
as the Army defined them, were operations undertaken for the purpose 
of suppressing an insurrection, establishing order, or dispensing pun¬ 
ishment in situations where U.S. troops usually faced a poorly equipped 
or irregular foe. Relatively little of this doctrine found its way into offi¬ 
cial manuals. However, curricular materials, war plans, and the actual 
actions taken by the Army in the field reveal a high degree of continuity 
in the way the service approached irregular warfare and pacification. 
This body of thought, the evolution of which is discussed in the first 
volume of this series, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency 
Operations Doctrine, 1860-1941, established some broad concepts 
governing the conduct of small wars. Militarily, these concepts called 
for the tailoring of forces and techniques to the political, military, and 
environmental situation. Aggressive small-unit action, incorporating 
regular and irregular techniques, was emphasized, as were mobil¬ 
ity, surprise, population control, and good intelligence. In terms of 
pacification, the theory recognized the value of courting the population 
through proper troop conduct and governmental reforms. The latter 
actions were designed to win favor, redress potential causes of discon¬ 
tent, and in their most acute form, to “uplift” the subject society by 
introducing “modern” social, political, and economic institutions. This 
approach to pacification was based on a complex blend of American 
and Western political and moral thought, international law, and rather 
paternalistic notions of the “white man’s burden.” 

Army doctrine also followed Western traditions in taking a dim view 
of guerrillas who violated the laws of war and hid their true identity by 
shedding their arms and uniforms. When a civilian population spurned 
the hand of reconciliation and supported illegal combatants, an army 
was free to employ more severe measures. Among the counterinsurgency 
methods employed by the United States prior to World War II were the 


8 


Introduction 



U.S. soldiers execute a German guerrilla in the closing days of 

World War II. 


taking of hostages; the destruction of food and property; the arrest, trial, 
and possible execution of guerrillas and their civilian allies; population 
resettlement; and a host of other restrictive steps. The net result of the 
Army’s thinking about small wars was a loose body of broadly defined 
concepts that blended aggressive military action, punitive measures, and 
enlightened administration into a carrot-and-stick approach to the sup¬ 
pression of irregulars and their civilian supporters. 4 

After a century of antiguerrilla operations, the U.S. Army had little 
occasion for fighting guerrillas during World War II. In the closing 
months of the war German leader Adolf Hitler launched a “Werewolf” 
guerrilla movement that harassed the Allies. The movement largely 
fizzled after Germany surrendered, however, and resistance to the 
postwar occupation of Germany generally amounted to little more than 
minor acts of sabotage and hooliganism, often perpetrated by wayward 
boys.’ 

For the most part, the U.S. Army found itself fighting alongside, 
rather than against, numerous partisan movements during World War 
II. U.S. soldiers, either as individuals caught behind enemy lines, as 
members of special irregular warfare units, as advisers to indigenous 
resistance forces, or as part of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 
waged guerrilla warfare against Axis forces throughout Asia and 
Europe. Compared to the millions of men who served in conventional 
combat assignments, however, the war produced only a small cadre of 


9 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Captured “Werewolves ” like these posed little danger during the 
postwar occupation of Germany. 


guerrilla warfare practitioners. These men would play an important role 
in guiding the Army’s postwar efforts to establish a guerrilla, and to a 
lesser extent, counterguerrilla, capability. The fact that the Army did 
not actually undertake any significant counterguerrilla actions during 
the war meant that there was no incentive to preserve or expand prewar 
small wars doctrine. Consequently, counterguerrilla warfare disap¬ 
peared from the curriculums of wartime service schools. Army doctrine 
writers similarly ignored the subject, and the meager amount of coun¬ 
terguerrilla information contained in the Army’s basic combat manual, 
Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations , 
hardly changed at all between 1939 and 1949. 

According to FM 100-5, partisan warfare could result from the 
defeat and breakup of the main forces of a modern opponent, from 
civilian resistance to the occupation of enemy territory, or from the 
rebellions of “semicivilized” peoples. Such campaigns, the manual 
advised, usually occurred in remote areas under difficult climatic and 
topographical conditions in which the counterinsurgent would have to 
employ special weapons, equipment, organizations, and methods to 
eliminate the resistance. Based in part on a study of French colonial 
techniques used in fighting Moroccan irregulars during the 1920s and 
1930s, the manual called for vigorous and bold action conducted along 
a broad front. Army doctrine considered encirclement to be the best 
method for defeating an elusive irregular foe, while air attacks were 


10 






Introduction 


deemed particularly eftective both as an economy of force measure 
and as a way to weaken the morale of the guerrillas and their civil¬ 
ian supporters. Once the hostile region had been occupied, it was to 
be prepared for defense, with highly mobile columns organized to 
operate as reaction and strike forces. The doctrine also recognized the 
particular utility of enrolling the indigenous population into small, 
mobile, constabulary-type units. Beyond these limited and largely 
colonial-oriented prescriptions the manual did not go. And with the 
disappearance of most of the Army’s prewar constabulary veterans due 
to death and retirement and with its interwar counterguerrilla curricular 
materials swept aside by the onslaught ot global conventional war, the 
Army emerged from World War II with virtually no written doctrine or 
corporate expertise on the conduct of counterguerrilla and pacification 
campaigns. 6 

This did not mean, however, that Army doctrine was devoid of 
information useful for conducting such campaigns. Wartime texts and 
manuals covered a wide range of topics that would be of utility in 
conducting counterguerrilla operations, including small-unit patrol, 
security, and combat techniques, convoy procedures, Ranger and com¬ 
mando-style operations, mountain and jungle warfare, and logistical 
and administrative methods required to project military power into 
the most remote corners of the globe. Moreover, the Army gained 
significant experience during the war in two doctrinal areas relevant 
to the conduct of pacification operations: military law and military 
government. 

Traditionally, international law and the U.S. Army’s own regulations 
disapproved of guerrillas and other mufti-clad irregulars for the simple 
reason that they blurred the line between combatant and noncombatant, 
a distinction that was essential to ameliorating the harshness of war for 
civilian populations. FM 27-10, Rules of Land Warfare , published in 
1940, echoed these long traditions in Western jurisprudence by estab¬ 
lishing strict criteria for guerrilla warriors. To be considered legitimate 
combatants, guerrillas had to be commanded by a person responsible 
for his subordinates; wear a fixed, distinctive sign recognizable at a dis¬ 
tance; carry their arms openly; and conduct themselves in accordance 
with the laws of war. Irregulars who failed to meet these criteria could 
be considered criminals, tried by military courts, and sentenced to 
prison or death. In practice, the Army had often chosen to treat captured 
guerrillas as legitimate prisoners of war to avoid an escalation of retal¬ 
iatory violence between the Army and its irregular opponents, although 
at times it had availed itself of the most extreme sanctions, especially 
against particularly troublesome guerrilla leaders. 7 


11 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


A similar code governed the treatment of civilians in occupied or 
hostile areas. Since the promulgation in 1863 of General Orders 100, 
Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the 
Field , the U.S. Army had acted in the belief that it had both a legal 
and moral obligation to conduct itself in as humane a manner as cir¬ 
cumstances permitted in its dealings with civilian populations. Such a 
policy was not only morally enlightened, but served a practical purpose 
as well, for as FM 27-5, Basic Field Manual, Military Government 
(1940), noted, “A military occupation marked by harshness, injustice, 
or oppression leaves lasting resentment against the occupying power in 
the hearts of the people of the occupied territory and sows the seeds of 
future war by them against the occupying power when circumstances 
shall make that possible; whereas just, considerate, and mild treat¬ 
ment of the governed by the occupying army will convert enemies into 
friends.” Since the Army’s immediate objective was to minimize any 
resistance that might hamper the prosecution of the military campaign 
and since the ultimate object of war was the establishment of a lasting 
peace, such a creed made sense. Consequently, prewar military gov¬ 
ernment doctrine called for the rapid restoration of normal social and 
economic life, the protection of personal and property rights, the incul¬ 
cation among the troops of respect for social and religious customs, the 
perpetuation of most indigenous law and administrative forms, and the 
retention, when possible, of indigenous officials in their posts. Military 
government districts were to conform as closely as possible to preexist¬ 
ing civilian boundaries so as to facilitate the coordination of political 
and military affairs. 8 

Wartime emotions led some soldiers during the 1940s to react 
adversely to what they perceived as the overly benevolent tone of this 
doctrine. When, for example, an Army civil affairs instructor at Yale 
University told his soldier-students that they should treat Japanese 
civilians humanely, several officers shouted back, “Let the yellow 
bastards starve!” Similarly, albeit with less bitterness. Col. Lewis K. 
Underhill instructed his students at the School for Military Government 
that the 1940 edition of FM 27-5 was too lenient and 

gives us the impression the objective of promoting the welfare of the governed 
in occupied territory is almost as important as the objective of military neces¬ 
sity. In fact, you get the impression from the text that our principal objective 
in invading a foreign country is to bring light to the heathen. Now I can assure 
you that is not realistic. There is only one legitimate objective of military 
government and that is to win the war. It is a method of fighting behind the 
lines, and is done by holding the civil population in subjection. . . . Military 
government is not a missionary enterprise, and while you do pay attention to 


12 


Introduction 


the welfare of the governed, you do it because you are inherently decent and 
because paying attention to their welfare where you can will tend to avoid the 
more violent kinds of outbreaks against you; but it is utterly misleading to put 
the welfare of the governed on par with military necessity. Everything you do 
in military government has to be tested in the light of whether it will aid or 
retard the campaign/' 

The Army endorsed this view, and the 1943 edition of FM 27-5 
dropped “welfare of the governed” and “considerate and mild treat¬ 
ment” as objectives of military government, injunctions that had been 
a part of U.S. Army doctrine since the Civil War. Nevertheless, while 
wartime attitudes stiffened some of the language contained in FM 
27-5, the revised doctrine still recognized the merits of “just and rea¬ 
sonable” treatment and encouraged moderate policies. Rather than a 
fundamental alteration in doctrine, the 1943 edition of FM 27-5 merely 
reflected a modest shift in the pendulum between benevolence and 
severity, two policies that had always enjoyed a dynamic relationship in 
Army doctrine. Indeed, Army doctrine continued to view the relation¬ 
ship between soldiers and civilians as a reciprocal one. As long as the 
population did not resist military authority it was to be treated well; but 
should the inhabitants take up arms or support guerrilla movements, 
then they were open to sterner measures. Thus, before, during, and after 
the war, Army doctrine endeavored to strike a pragmatic, though often 
uneasy, balance between humanity and severity, the exact proportions 
of which were left undefined so that commanders could best respond 
to the particular circumstances of the moment. 10 

Although governing occupied areas was a traditional military func¬ 
tion, when the Army established a School for Military Government at 
Charlottesville, Virginia, in May 1942, the move immediately drew crit¬ 
icism. Many believed that the institution represented a dangerous intru¬ 
sion of the military into civilian affairs, labeling it a “school for gauleit- 
ers.” Several civilian departments of government likewise attacked the 
school because they deemed the training of military specialists in civil 
administration to be a direct threat to their own bureaucratic interests. 
For its part, the Army was not at all enthusiastic about undertaking 
civil administrative burdens, but it maintained that as a practical matter 
it was the only agency with the training, organization, and personnel 
to administer foreign populations during wartime. Moreover, military 
necessity and the principle of unity of command demanded that all civil 
and military forces be placed at the disposal of a single military com¬ 
mander so as not to impede the successful prosecution of the war. These 
principles had long been core tenets of U.S. Army doctrine, for as Col. 
Jesse Miller of the Provost Marshal General’s Military Government 


13 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



The U.S. Army School for Military Government 


Division noted in July 1942, “if there is one outstanding lesson to be 
gained from prior American experiences in military government, it is 
the unwisdom of permitting any premature interference by civilian 
agencies with the Army’s basic task of civil administration in occupied 
areas.” 11 

Ultimately, experience showed that the Army was right. After civil¬ 
ian agencies proved incapable of meeting their basic obligations during 
the occupation of North Africa in 1942-1943, the Army assumed near¬ 
ly complete control of civil affairs and military government functions 
for the remainder of the war. Despite some failings of concept, policy, 
and administration, the Army assembled a creditable record under try¬ 
ing circumstances, providing basic governmental services to over 200 
million people worldwide. 12 

Much to the Army’s chagrin, the end of hostilities did not bring an 
end to the service’s civil affairs and military government responsibili¬ 
ties. 13 When the civilian agencies that ought to have assumed the burdens 
of administering the occupied territories after the war proved unequal 
to the task, the Army was forced to take on the mission. These postwar 
occupations differed in important respects from those conducted during 
the war. The wartime occupations had endeavored to restore law, order, 
and basic governmental services for the purpose of facilitating the war 
effort. The postwar occupations, on the other hand, had as a goal not 
the restoration of antebellum conditions, but their transformation. In 
Germany and Japan, the U.S. government endeavored to revolutionize 


14 










Introduction 


the political, social, and economic foundations of those societies to 
ensure that they would never again become fertile ground for aggres¬ 
sive militaristic and antidemocratic forces. In Germany, this took the 
form of the four ”Ds”: denazification, decartelization, demilitarization, 
and democratization. A similar program was imposed on Japan. 14 

The job of transforming Germany and Japan was enormous, and 
it was a task for which most U.S. soldiers had little preparation. The 
man chosen to bring American-style democracy to Germany, Lt. Gen. 
Lucius D. Clay, had never cast a ballot in his life. His counterpart in 
Japan, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, likewise had no spe¬ 
cial qualifications as a nation builder. Nor were many of their subor¬ 
dinates much better prepared. Partly because of the Army’s traditional 
disinclination to dabble in politics and partly because civilian criticism 
had led the School for Military Government to focus on purely admin¬ 
istrative matters to the exclusion of policy, the majority of military 
government personnel were unprepared for the mission of transforming 
German and Japanese society." 

Nevertheless, America’s soldier-diplomats did not undertake their 
assignment in a vacuum. Like U.S. soldiers charged with nation¬ 
building duties before them—including MacArthur’s own father four 
decades earlier in the Philippines—they approached their work from a 
perspective shaped by American political and cultural values. Although 
their particular views on any given subject might vary, America’s 
overseas governors generally believed in the virtue of the American 
political, economic, and social system. Like the society from which 
they were drawn, they believed in liberty, self-reliance, and individual¬ 
ism tempered by civic responsibility; in private property and industry 
unfettered by overly intrusive government regulation; and in public 
education’s vital role in laying the groundwork for full participation in 
political and economic affairs. They also brought with them the prides 
and prejudices of their day, including racist and ethnocentristic atti¬ 
tudes. This complex mosaic of cultural values was what often guided 
their actions rather than any specific training. 

Although charged with the task of transforming German and 
Japanese society, the Army’s social engineers were aware that, in the 
words of one Army manual, “in general, it is unwise to impose upon 
occupied territory the laws and customs of another people.” Past expe¬ 
rience had shown that such endeavors often produced much turmoil 
and little results, as the indigenous body politic often rejected trans¬ 
planted institutions. Indeed, Clay believed that “a foreign group can¬ 
not establish a successful revolution” in another society, while Army 
officials in Japan stated that “only insofar as the Japanese leaders and 


15 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A U.S. military court tries a German civilian charged with 
illegally possessing a firearm. 


people recognized the goals of the Occupation as desirable could there 
be hope that the alterations accomplished by the Occupation would 
endure.” Bayonets could impose change, but only a genuine evolution 
in the values and beliefs of the people could ensure that the subject 
societies would be transformed—a process that required time and 
indigenous support. Consequently, U.S. overseas administrators took a 
conservative and pragmatic approach consistent with that adopted by 
the Army in its pre-1940 nation-building endeavors. Rather than liter¬ 
ally transposing American institutions on foreign societies, America’s 
social engineers in uniform usually worked through existing institu¬ 
tions as much as possible, planting seeds—like reforming educational 
systems and removing barriers to personal, political, economic, and 
social expression—in the hope that these ideas would eventually take 
root and flourish. Generally, they endeavored to build democracy from 
the ground up, strengthening local institutions and appealing to the 
will of the people wherever possible. Following military government 
precedent, the Army rapidly restored most aspects of internal civil and 
political life to lighten its own administrative burdens, build consensus, 
and garner legitimacy. 16 

These wise policies were exceedingly difficult to accomplish. 
Undesirable traits such as racism and wartime hatreds complicated their 
execution. In fact, the very notion of transforming a foreign society was 
in itself inherently ethnocentric. No matter how sensitive one tries to 


16 





















Introduction 


be toward another culture—and sensitivity is an absolute prerequisite to 
any successful aid, advisory, or nation-building mission—not to impose 
one s own notions is virtually impossible; after all, that is why the mis¬ 
sion is usually being undertaken in the first place. Moreover, there are 
times when reforms are so important, either to the subject society or to 
the occupier, that they must be imposed whether popular or not. 

The postwar occupations illustrated these age-old dilemmas well. 
When U.S. officials deemed a particular change to be of critical impor¬ 
tance, like denazification, they imposed it by fiat regardless of indig¬ 
enous sentiments. Such impositions sometimes created a backlash from 
the subject population. On the other hand, the Army’s policy of turning 
over the workings of government as quickly as possible to indigenous 
officials also undermined reform efforts, as local leaders often had 
different goals and values than U.S. authorities. For example, once the 
Army passed the job of denazification over to German authorities in 
1946, those officials restored full citizenship rights to most ex-Nazis 
after imposing only mild admonitions and fines, much to the distress 
of many Americans. Similar problems occurred in other aspects of the 
reform effort, with the result that many American-introduced concepts 
either withered on the vine or were otherwise transformed or subverted. 
Had America’s proconsuls had the luxury of an indefinite tenure and a 
single agenda, they might have been more successful in transplanting 
American institutions, but they did not. Neither the Army nor the nation 
was willing to undertake the costs of indefinite tutelage. Furthermore, 
military government personnel had to juggle the multiple goals of 
promoting democracy, reducing the financial burdens of occupation 
duty, achieving economic health and self-sufficiency, obtaining Allied 
cooperation, and, with the onset of the Cold War, building bulwarks 
against the spread of communism. Some of these goals were comple¬ 
mentary, but others were not, and in endeavoring to balance them, 
long-term reforms sometimes gave way to more pragmatic, short-term 
objectives. 17 

Difficulties notwithstanding, the United States ultimately suc¬ 
ceeded in transforming the former Axis powers into stable democratic 
partners. This achievement encouraged some observers to believe 
that social engineering was possible in a relatively short time. Such 
conclusions overlooked both the failure of many American initiatives 
and the hardiness of indigenous institutions. Moreover, the postwar 
occupations had enjoyed several significant advantages over the type of 
nation-building activities that the United States would attempt in many 
third world countries. The occupations had occurred in peacetime, after 
conflict had been terminated, law and order restored, and many of the 


17 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


institutions that might have impeded change had been destroyed by the 
war itself. Having total control over a prostrate society also simplified 
nation-building programs in Germany and Japan. Conquest facilitated 
social engineering by discrediting the old ways and by providing a 
powerful, physical demonstration of the superiority of American meth¬ 
ods. Finally, in Germany and Japan, the United States was dealing with 
modern, industrialized, and ethnically cohesive nations with strong 
bureaucratic, political, and social institutions. Success in these areas 
would not necessarily translate into an ability to work similar transfor¬ 
mations in less developed and less homogenous societies or in societies 
whose political and cultural heritages were radically unlike America’s 
own. Future policy makers would not always appreciate these aspects 
of postwar nation-building endeavors. ls 

The military government experience of the 1940s thus bequeathed 
America’s soldiers, statesmen, and policy makers an ambivalent legacy. 
Much had been accomplished, yet many problems remained unresolved. 
One such issue involved the question of government organization for 
overseas politico-military operations. In theory, the State Department 
determined policy and the Army executed it. In practice, poor civilian 
guidance and the press of events often meant that the Army exercised 
broad powers over the conduct of overseas policy, both during the war 
and the postwar occupations. Throughout the war the Departments of 
State, the Treasury, and the Interior had fought fiercely both among 
themselves and against the War Department over questions of function 
and jurisdiction, and when President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the 
Foreign Economic Administration in 1943 to establish some coordina¬ 
tion, the civilian agencies had fought against the prospect of unified 
civilian direction just as vehemently as they had against the prospect 
of military predominance. The Army’s commitment to the principle of 
unity of command notwithstanding, the philosophical and bureaucratic 
impediments to achieving centralized direction over overseas politico- 
military operations had never been fully overcome during the 1940s. 
The result was an unsettled legacy that did not bode well for future 
American foreign aid, nation-building, and pacification efforts. 19 

The experience of the 1940s also illustrated the impossibility of 
separating political from purely military or administrative concerns, 
no matter how hard soldiers and civilians sought to do so. Political 
issues and consequences were embedded in even the most technical 
and seemingly innocuous administrative questions, and by necessity 
rather than by choice, U.S. soldiers had found that they had to exercise 
considerable political judgment. The experience demonstrated that 
the Army needed to be better prepared for politico-military missions. 


18 


Introduction 


Yet civilian criticism also reaffirmed for soldiers the old lesson that 
military government and nation building were arduous and insti¬ 
tutionally unrewarding. Thus, while the Army could not ignore the 
military government function, strong traditions in American political 
thought traditions shared by soldiers and civilians alike—continued 
to retard the development of military capabilities in political affairs. 
Consequently, the Army s military government training and doctrinal 
systems emerged from the 1940s much as they had entered it. They 
focused on the military, technical, and administrative aspects of civil 
affairs—military government duty while avoiding detailed treatment 
of political issues—issues that were not only difficult but, since they 
were often situation specific, were largely irresolvable from a doctrinal 
standpoint in any case. Nation building, as distinct from occupation 
duty, was not discussed. Rather, the postwar Army, like its prewar pre¬ 
decessor, confined itself to prescribing some broad principles govern¬ 
ing the Army’s relationship with foreign populations—principles that 
stressed pragmatism, flexibility, and “firm-but-fair” policies designed 
to balance military necessity with the needs and aspirations of the 
local populace. How such a doctrine would fare under the demands of 
the postwar world remained to be seen. 20 

Guerrillas, Civilians, and the Geneva Convention of 1949 

Although U.S. Army doctrine on the treatment of guerrillas and 
civilian populations emerged from World War II with its fundamental 
principles largely intact, one outgrowth of the war that had the poten¬ 
tial to alter these principles occurred in 1949, when the victorious 
powers met at Geneva, Switzerland, to revise international law in light 
of their wartime experiences. Many of the participating countries had 
been occupied by the Axis powers during the war, had formed resis¬ 
tance movements to oppose those occupations, and had suffered under 
exceedingly harsh Axis policies. Consequently, there was a general 
movement to clarify and expand the protections accorded to civilian 
populations during wartime. The convention reemphasized the rights 
of noncombatants and narrowed the definition of military necessity—a 
clause that armies had often used in the past to justify the harshest of 
actions. 21 

The conferees also took the extraordinary step of extending inter¬ 
national law to internal conflicts. The 1949 agreement required that 
signatory nations facing an internal war or rebellion treat humanely 
“persons taking no active part in the hostilities.” The convention 
made illegal the acts of humiliating, mutilating, torturing, or killing 


19 








Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


such individuals; of taking them hostage; or of denying them due 
process. These provisions were exceedingly controversial, as many 
states felt that any rule affecting their internal affairs represented an 
infringement on their sovereignty. Consequently, the language of the 
treaty was vague in some respects. Similarly, although the conven¬ 
tion attempted to extend the protection of “legitimate belligerents” 
to members of resistance movements, the treaty still required that 
individuals meet the same four criteria of the past to qualify for such 
protection—responsible command, recognizable insignia, exposed 
weapons, and proper conduct according to the laws of war. 22 

The results of Geneva were thus ambiguous. Champions of human 
rights could point to significant victories, yet the treaty remained open 
to conflicting interpretation. To what extent could international law 
really be applied to the internal affairs of a nation, and at what point 
did individuals cross the line from being bandits (to which international 
law did not apply) to “privileged belligerents”? Were civilians who 
participated in clandestine organizations that fed, clothed, housed, and 
aided guerrillas “taking no active part in the hostilities,” and therefore 
protected under the convention, or were they acting illegally and there¬ 
fore outside of its protections? Finally, since most guerrilla organiza¬ 
tions were either unable or unwilling to meet the four criteria of legiti¬ 
macy, the convention had not really improved their status at all. These 
ambiguities would provide fertile ground for confusion and debate for 
decades to come. 23 

For the most part the U.S. Army embraced the more humane 
spirit of the 1949 convention. Collective punishment, reprisals, and 
hostage taking—three tools the Army had employed in past counter¬ 
insurgencies—were banned after the United States ratified the Geneva 
Convention in 1955, as were all measures of intimidation or terror. The 
Army also required U.S. soldiers to follow the treaty’s internal warfare 
prescriptions in all advisory and operational missions abroad, includ¬ 
ing those involving purely indigenous resistance movements. On the 
other hand, while the Army continued to espouse the same enlightened 
principles of justice, humanity, and good troop conduct that had long 
been the foundation of U.S. Army policy, it also continued to apply to 
irregulars the same strict criteria of legitimacy that had existed prior to 
World War II. Similarly, the Army continued to maintain that civilians 
who gave guerrillas supplies, money, or intelligence could be punished. 
Civilian property could still be destroyed if the destruction served a 
demonstrable military purpose, and civilian populations could still be 
relocated as long as such action was performed humanely. The carrot 
and stick thus remained inextricably linked in the uneasy, yet symbi- 


20 





Introduction 


otic, relationship that had long characterized the conduct of American 
counterinsurgency operations. 24 


The Army and the Challenges of the Postwar World 

The Geneva Convention was just one example of how World War 
II had altered the political and military landscape in which the post¬ 
war Army would have to maneuver. In addition to wrestling with new 
global responsibilities and Cold War threats, the postwar Army found 
itself under constant pressure to absorb increasingly sophisticated tech¬ 
nologies, from atomic weapons to helicopters, in ever shorter lengths 
of time. These developments placed enormous strains on the service’s 
doctrinal, materiel, organizational, and training systems, as the Army 
struggled to prepare for the divergent requirements of nuclear, conven¬ 
tional, and irregular warfare; domestic duties; and overseas constabu¬ 
lary functions. The result of all these pressures and competing needs 
was a doctrinal treadmill, with the Army’s basic statement of funda¬ 
mental doctrine, FM 100-5, Operations , undergoing eight different 
editions between 1941 and 1976. Force structures underwent similar 
changes. Over the course of a single ten-year period (1955-1965), the 
Army twice overhauled its basic divisional structure while dabbling 
with a number of air cavalry, airmobile, Ranger, Special Forces, and 
light infantry formations. All of these factors impeded the ability of 
soldiers to absorb and understand doctrine. 25 

America’s superpower status, when coupled with the Cold War and 
the introduction of weapons of mass destruction, also complicated the 
Army’s world by intertwining political and military affairs to an extent 
far greater than before. This resulted in an unprecedented degree of 
military influence on political and diplomatic affairs, and an equally 
deep penetration of traditionally military spheres by civilian policy 
makers who believed that war in the nuclear age was too important to 
be left to generals. The advent of the national security state was accom¬ 
panied by the development of an entirely new class of civilian strate¬ 
gists, analysts, and scientists who fueled the creation of what one author 
termed an “era of overthink.” Driven by the belief that technology had 
revolutionized warfare, many national security intellectuals declared 
history to be irrelevant in establishing future strategies and doctrines. 
One consequence of this trend was that doctrine, which had tradition¬ 
ally represented a distillation of experience, began to reflect an increas¬ 
ingly theoretical influence in which projections of future technologies 
and behaviors began to overshadow lessons from the past. Although 
scholars of strategy initially focused their attention on nuclear affairs, 


21 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the plethora of civilian think tanks, institutes, and analysts would even¬ 
tually have a profound influence on how the United States approached 
counterinsurgency, pacification, and nation-building issues. 26 

The difficulties facing the Army in the realms of organization and 
doctrine after 1945 were matched by equally daunting foreign policy 
problems for the nation as a whole. In assessing the challenges of the 
postwar world, America’s attention initially focused on Western Europe, 
an area with which the United States had strong cultural, economic, and 
political ties. Six years of warfare had made the region vulnerable to 
communism, either through internal subversion or by overt aggression 
from the Soviet Union’s new lodgments in Eastern Europe. To counter 
these threats, the United States during the late 1940s developed a dual 
strategy of economic development and military assistance that would 
serve as its fundamental recipe for the containment of communism for 
the next half-century. 

In March 1947 President Harry S. Truman requested that Congress 
appropriate a mixture of economic and military aid to prevent Greece 
and Turkey from falling under the shadow of totalitarianism. Three 
months later Secretary of State George C. Marshall unveiled a massive 
$13 billion program of economic and technical assistance for the rest of 
Europe—a sum that, if expressed in 2004 dollars, would exceed $ 102 
billion. The overwhelmingly economic focus of these first Cold War 
programs reflected the widespread belief that political systems were 
largely shaped by economic conditions and that communism and other 
radical ideologies flourished in economically depressed conditions. 
Eliminate the socioeconomic environment in which communism bred, 
and the danger of subversion would likewise diminish. 27 

The stunning success of the Marshall Plan in restoring Western 
Europe encouraged the United States to apply the same formula in 
various degrees around the world to any nation threatened by commu¬ 
nism. U.S. policy makers were aware, however, that economic aid and 
technical assistance alone could not always keep the Communists at 
bay, either because the United States lacked the financial resources to 
uplift every threatened part of the world simultaneously or because the 
Communists had already established firm footholds before American 
help could arrive. Moreover, even healthy democratic societies were 
vulnerable to external aggression. Consequently, in 1949, two years 
after the announcement of the Marshall Plan, the United States strength¬ 
ened the military aspects of its effort to contain the spread of commu¬ 
nism. The military response to the Cold War took two forms. The first 
was a system of alliances, begun in Europe with the formation of the 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but later expanded to other 


22 



Introduction 


parts of the world with the creation of additional pacts. The second 
was the establishment of a program of military assistance to flesh out 

the aimed forces of America’s new allies with U.S. arms and military 
expertise. 

Two features of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program, as the aid 
program was initially known, are of interest. First, the legislation autho¬ 
rizing the program stated that the economic recovery of Europe, as well 
as the other countries that were to receive aid, would receive a higher 
funding priority than the provision of military assistance. This stipula¬ 
tion reflected the continued belief that internal socioeconomic strength 
was the ultimate key to both democracy and national security. Second, 
the military aid program, like America’s economic aid programs, 
was intended to be a short-term, pump-priming measure, rather than 
a permanent program. Self-help and reciprocity were the program’s 
watchwords—ideals that were not always achieved as promptly and 
thoroughly as the architects of the program might have hoped. 28 

The advent of the military assistance program represented an 
immense new undertaking for the U.S. Army, one for which it had 
relatively little experience. Between 1949 and 1960, the United States 
provided nearly $24 billion worth of military aid to more than forty 
nations around the world. By 1956, 20 percent of all Army officers 
had served as military advisers to foreign forces. Initially, much of this 
effort focused on creating conventional armed forces to resist Soviet 
or other external aggression. However, internal subversion, either 
indigenously generated or assisted by external Communist forces, soon 
became equally as menacing. This observation was true not so much in 
Western Europe, but rather in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, where 
the weakness of the old European colonial powers combined with 
rising third world nationalism and socioeconomic change to create a 
world ripe for revolution and civil war. In fact, there were so many 
internal conflicts during the three decades between 1945 and 1975 that 
the period has been described as the “era of people’s war.” Revolution, 
colonial rebellions, and civil strife were certainly not new phenomena, 
but their potential exploitation by the forces of communism made them 
particularly dangerous in the minds of American Cold War strategists. 
This was especially true after the widespread dissemination of Chinese 
Communist leader Mao Tse-tung’s theories of revolutionary warfare in 
the 1950s and early 1960sA 

Early Communists like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, V I. Lenin, 
and Leon Trotsky had always considered guerrilla warfare as but one 
tool in the revolutionary arsenal, and not necessarily the most important 
one. Rather, they had regarded urban insurrection and conventional 


23 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


warfare as the primary weapons of revolution. Although the world’s 
first Communist state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), 
had employed partisan tactics during the revolution and civil war that 
had given it birth, guerrilla methods never played a central role in 
Soviet thinking. When the Soviet Union published a manual on insur¬ 
rectionary warfare in 1928, the book contained only a single chapter 
on guerrilla warfare—a chapter that was written not by a Soviet, but 
by an obscure Vietnamese Communist, Ho Chi Minh. Consequently, 
from the time U.S. soldiers first began to contemplate measures to 
combat socialist revolutionaries in the 1880s until World War II, they 
approached the subject largely in terms of urban warfare and domestic 
disturbances rather than as counterguerrilla warfare. 30 

All this began to change in 1949, when Mao Tse-tung’s rural-based 
insurgency finally toppled Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in China after 
more than two decades of war and revolution. Over those years Mao had 
been a prolific writer, committing to paper his thoughts on the nature 
of war, revolution, and the course of the Chinese Civil War. Differing 
significantly from most Soviet strategists and their disciples among the 
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he rejected urban-centered strategies 
for rural-based guerrilla warfare. Much of what Mao had to say about 
guerrilla warfare was not new, for the basic tenets of guerrilla combat 
have been known for centuries. In fact, he shared the traditional view of 
guerrilla warfare as an inferior tool—one that was unlikely to triumph 
against a regular army unless the guerrillas eventually created their own 
conventional forces. But he correctly gauged that rural guerrilla war¬ 
fare could lay the foundations for a successful revolution, at least under 
the conditions he found in contemporary China. What made Mao’s 
methods unique were not his military stratagems, but his blending of 
traditional guerrilla methods with Leninist organizational techniques 
to create a mass, peasant-based, nationalistic armed movement firmly 
under the control of the Communist Party. 31 

Although a Marine officer had warned his Army colleagues about 
the potency of Mao’s methods in a 1941 article, the Army would not 
begin to study Mao until the 1950s, after his final triumph had dem¬ 
onstrated the power of his ideas. Even then, intensive study was slow 
in coming, partly because of the Army’s conventional focus, partly 
because the import of Mao’s methods was not yet fully clear, and 
partly because the Army’s first direct clash with Mao’s forces occurred 
during a largely conventional war on the Korean Peninsula. Moreover, 
one must remember that Mao’s victory had not been certain. China’s 
Communists had come perilously close to being defeated several 
times during their long struggle, and, had Japan not invaded China and 


24 




Introduction 


subsequently been defeated by the United States in World War II, the 
Chinese Communists may well have failed. 32 

But fortune smiled on Mao, and his victory over Chiang Kai-shek 
in 1949, followed by the triumph of his Vietnamese disciple Ho Chi 
Minh over French colonialists in neighboring Indochina in 1954, even¬ 
tually catapulted his methods to the forefront of Cold War strategy. 
Although most of Mao’s writings focused on explaining the nature of 
China’s political and military situation, the leaders of radical move¬ 
ments around the world treated his words as if they were prophecy. 
In Mao’s three stages of revolutionary warfare they thought they had 
tound the ideal formula by which a relatively small, highly disciplined 
cadre could organize the rural masses of an underdeveloped country 
to overthrow an unpopular, repressive, or colonial regime. Since, by 
happy coincidence, World War II had shattered the grip of the old 
imperial powers and unleashed hitherto suppressed nationalistic senti¬ 
ments throughout the third world, Mao’s revolutionary war philosophy 
became the very embodiment of the era of people’s war. 33 

By the 1960s many Americans had come to share this view, partic¬ 
ularly after Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev openly embraced “wars 
of national liberation’’ as a vehicle with which to further communism’s 
struggle against the West. Taking the challenge to heart, U.S. soldiers, 
statesmen, and civilian theorists alike rushed to obtain copies of what 
ultimately became known as Mao’s little red book to understand what 
they believed was the next phase of world communism’s master plan. 
In the process, many theorists—American and foreign, Marxist and 
non-Marxist—became more doctrinaire than Mao himself, asserting 
universal applicability to concepts Mao had originally envisioned only 
for China in the 1930s and 1940s. The Chinese government actively 
promoted the notion that Mao’s precepts were universal, both as a way 
to make war on the West without risking a nuclear confrontation and 
as a means of elevating China’s standing in its rivalry with the Soviet 
Union for leadership of the Communist world. Such analysis ignored 
Mao’s own warning that each military and revolutionary situation had 
its own rules and circumstances that would doom to failure any attempt 
to apply slavishly a particular doctrine. Nevertheless, many theorists 
came to believe that Mao had done for guerrilla warfare what the 
atom bomb had done to conventional warfare—he had revolutionized 
it. By blending modern techniques of Communist Party organization, 
propaganda, and population control with the ancient arts of guerrilla 
warfare, some observers believed Mao had created a whole new form 
of warfare, unprecedented in scope, for which all previous experience 
was irrelevant. 34 


25 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


One aspect of Communist theory that many Western analysts found 
appealing was Mao’s statement that political, rather than military, 
considerations were paramount in revolutionary warfare. To many, 
this idea made Maoist-style warfare qualitatively different from all 
past guerrilla and revolutionary conflicts. But the assertion by Mao’s 
Western disciples that prior guerrilla conflicts had been apolitical was 
historically incorrect." Past revolutionary movements may have been 
less sophisticated in organization and technique, but their leaders cer¬ 
tainly had been aware of the political and psychological components of 
their struggles. Nevertheless, Mao’s dictum of political primacy had the 
effect of further promoting civilian influence in the formulation of mili¬ 
tary doctrine. Indeed, with the exception of nuclear warfare strategy, 
no other area of military thought would be so influenced by politicians 
and civilian theorists during the initial postwar decades than counter¬ 
insurgency. There was, of course, nothing wrong with this, as long as 
the policies and doctrines that emerged from the intellectual tumult of 
the 1960s were workable and based on reality rather than on theoretical 
constructs or overly doctrinaire readings of Mao and other Communist 
theorists. Unfortunately, that was not always the case, and some of the 
“overthink” that transpired during the era of people’s war would prove 
counterproductive. In fact, fascination with Mao produced a certain 
rigidity in American counterinsurgency thought during the 1960s and 
1970s that earlier doctrine had lacked and that seems particularly dated 
in the light of the post-Cold War world. 

But that is jumping ahead in the story. During the decade that fol¬ 
lowed World War II the Army grappled with a number of insurgencies 
that had erupted in areas formerly occupied by the Axis powers, as 
Communists around the world endeavored to exploit the vacuum cre¬ 
ated by Axis withdrawal and the frailty of many postwar governments 
and colonial regimes. For the most part, the Army undertook this job in 
a doctrinal void, without the benefit of a detailed written doctrine for 
counterguerrilla warfare or any familiarity with the writings of Mao. 
How it met the challenges posed by the postwar revolutions is the sub¬ 
ject of the next two chapters. 


26 


Notes 


Edwin Coir and Stephen Sloan, Low-Intensity Conflict: Old Threats in a New World 
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992), p. 6. 

Department of Defense, Joint Publication 1—02, Department of Defense Dictionary 
of Military and Associated Terms , 12 Apr 2001, as amended 25 Sep 2002, p. 117. 

3 Robert Doughty, The Evolution of U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1946-76 (Fort 
Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1979), p. 1; John 
Mills, “U.S. Army Doctrine—Far Sighted Vision or Transient Fad?” (Master’s thesis, 
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College [CGSC], 1987), pp. 10-12. 

4 Andrew Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine, 
1860-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1998). 

5 For background on the Werewolf movement, see Perry Biddiscombe, The Last 
Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Euorpe, 1944-1947 (Charleston, S.C.: 
Tempus, 2000), and Charles Whiting, Werewolf: The Story of the Nazi Resistance 
Movement, 1944-1945 (Barnsley, England: Pen & Sword Books, 1996). 

6 War Department Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations 
(tentative) (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1939), pp. 229-31; 
FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations , 1941, pp. 238-40; FM 100-5, 
Field Service Regulations, Operations , 1944, pp. 284-86; FM 100-5, Field Service 
Regulations, Operations, 1949, pp. 231-33. 

7 For background on the legality of guerrilla warfare, see Lester Nurick and Roger 
Barrett, “Legality of Guerrilla Forces Under the Laws of War,” American Journal of 
International Law 40 (July 1946): 563-83. 

■ FM 27-5, Basic Field Manual, Military Government, 1940, p. 4. 

9 First quote from Justin Williams, “From Charlottesville to Tokyo: Military 
Government Training and Democratic Reforms in Occupied Japan,” Pacific Historical 
Review 51 (1982): 417. Second quote from Carl Friedrich et al., American Experiences 
in Military Government in World War II (New York: Rinehart and Co., 1948), p. 27. 

10 William Daugherty and Marshall Andrews, A Review of U.S. Historical Experience 
with Civil Affairs, 1776-1954, Operations Research Office Technical Paper, ORO- 
TP-29, Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 
1961, pp. 234-35; FM 27-10, Rules of Land Warfare, 1940, pp. 4-5, 7, 85-90; FM 
27-5, United States Army and Navy Manual of Military > Government and Civil Affairs, 
1943, pp. 7-8; FM 27-5, United States Army and Navy Manual of Civil Affairs Military 
Government, 1947, pp. 6, 9-10. 

"First quote from Earl Ziemke, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 
1944-1946, Army Historical Series (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 
History, 1975), p. 12. Second quote from Harry Coles and Albert Weinberg, Civil 
Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: 
U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1964), p. 15, and see also pp. 4-5, 16-17, 22-26. 
Daugherty and Andrews, Historical Experience with Civil Affairs, pp. 199, 260; Provost 
Marshal General, History of Military Government Training, 4 vols., 1945, 1:6-10, U.S. 
Army Center of Military History (CMH), Washington, D.C. 

12 Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, pp. 3, 56-66, 92; Ziemke, Occupation of 
Germany, pp. 15-16; Daugherty and Andrews, Historical Experience with Civil Affairs, 


27 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


pp. 444-50; Martin Kyre and Joan Kyre, Military Occupation and National Security 
(Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1968), pp. 19-24; Daniel Fahey, Jr., Findings, 
Analysis, Conclusions, and Recommendations Concerning U.S. Civil Affairs/Military 
Government Organization, Department of the Army, 1951, p. 1, CMH (hereafter cited 
as Fahey Report). 

13 Prior to World War II, the Army had used the terms civil affairs and military gov¬ 
ernment interchangeably. One of the conceptual changes that emerged during the war 
was the creation of a distinction between these terms. In the new lexicon, civil affairs 
referred to the exercise of varying degrees of governmental authority short of full 
control, usually over predominantly friendly areas. The term military government was 
limited to the imposition of absolute military control, usually over hostile areas. During 
the 1950s the Army broadened the term civil affairs to include the entire relationship 
between the Army and civilian communities. Military government thus became a subset 
of civil affairs. This change reflected the increasing importance of civil and political 
matters in the conduct of postwar overseas operations of a constabulary, contingency, 
and assistance nature, where the Army would not be operating as an occupation power. 
Kyre and Kyre, Military Occupation , pp. 10-16. 

14 Robert Wolfe, ed., Americans as Proconsuls: United States Military Government 
in Germany and Japan, 1944-1952 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 
1984), pp. 59, 93, 96; Fahey Report, p. 2; Ziemke, Occupation of Germany , p. 432; John 
Pappas, “A Review of U.S. Civil Affairs/Military Government, 1778-1955: An Analysis 
of Concepts” (Student thesis, Army War College, 1955), p. 21; John Mason, “Training 
American Civilian Personnel for Occupation Duties,” American Journal of International 
Law 40 (January 1946): 180-81; Williams, “Charlottesville to Tokyo,” pp. 421-22; 
General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), History of 
the Nonmilitary Activities of the Occupation of Japan, 1952, pp. 1-9, CMH. 

"Wolfe, ed., Americans as Proconsuls , p. 105; Pappas, Review of U.S. Civil 
Affairs/Military Government, p. 20; Eric Bohman, “Rehearsals for Victory: The War 
Department and the Planning and Direction of Civil Affairs, 1940-43” (Ph.D. diss., Yale 
University, 1984), pp. 467-68. 

"First quote from Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, p. 146. Second quote from 
Wolfe, ed., Americans as Proconsuls, p. 104, and see also p. 105. Third quote from 
SCAP, History of Nonmilitary Activities, p. 37. Henry Hille, “Eighth Army’s Role in the 
Military Government of Japan,” Military Review 27 (February 1948): 9-10. 

17 Wolfe, ed., Americans as Proconsuls, p. 66; Koppel Pinson, Modern Germany 
(New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 42-45; James Tent, Mission on the Rhine (Chicago: 
University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 312; SCAP, History of Nonmilitary Activities, pp. 
57-58; John Gimbel, The American Occupation of Germany (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford 
University Press, 1968), p. 249. 

"Tent, Mission on the Rhine , p. 318; Conference of Scholars on the Administration 
of Occupied Areas, 1943-55, 10-11 Apr 70, pp. 71-75, 82, Harry S. Truman Library, 
Independence, Mo., copy in CMH; Wolfe, ed., Americans as Proconsuls, pp. 66, 
417-22, 442^43; Michael Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science 
and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina 
Press, 2000), pp. 79-80. 

"Ziemke, Occupation of Germany, pp. 21-22. 

711 E. H. Vernon, “Civil Affairs and Military Government,” Military> Review 26 (June 
1946): 25-32; FM 27-5, United States Army and Navy Manual of Military Government 


28 


Introduction 


and Civil Affairs, 1943, pp. 5—10; FM 27—5, United States Army and Navy Manual of 
Civil Affairs Military Government , 1947, pp. 7-15; William Swarm, “Impact of the 
Pioconsulai Experience on Civil Affairs Organization and Doctrine,” in Americans as 
Proconsuls , ed. Wolfe, pp. 398^415. 

'' FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare , 1956, pp. 17-23. 

Keith S liter, An International Law of Guerrilla Warfare: The Global Politics of Law 
Making (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), p. 15. 

23 FM 27—10, The Law> of Land Warfare , 1956, pp. 107, 152. For comments on the 
inadequacy of the 1949 conventions treatment of guerrilla and internal conflicts, see 
Suter, International Law of Guerrilla Warfare , pp. 10-17; John Moore, “Low-Intensity 
Conflict and the International Legal System,” in Corr and Sloan, Low-Intensity Conflict , 
pp. 276-87; Robert Powers, “Guerrillas and the Laws of War,” US. Naval Institute 
Proceedings 89 (March 1963): 82-87; Morris Greenspan, “International Law and Its 
Protection for Participants in Unconventional Warfare,” Annals 341 (May 1962): 30-41. 

:4 FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare , 1956, pp. 3, 23-28, 31, 33, 34, 106-07, 
144-45, 148-49. 

’Mills, “U.S. Army Doctrine,” pp. 2, 8,14; Douglas Blaufarb, The Counterinsurgency 
Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to the Present (New York: Free Press, 1977), 
P- 71. 

26 Harry Coles, “Strategic Studies Since 1945, the Era of Overthink,” Military Review 
53 (April 1973): 3-16; Dennis Vetock, Lessons Learned: A History of U.S. Army Lesson 
Learning (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army Military History Institute, 1988), p. 92. 

27 Walter Hermes, Survey of the Development of the Role of the U.S. Army Military 
Advisor, OCMH Study, Office of the Chief of Military History (OCMH), 1965, p. 61, 
CMH; “Marshall Plan Changed the Face of Europe,” Washington Post , 25 May 97, p. 1. 

2S Andrew Birtle, Rearming the Phoenix: U.S. Military Assistance to the Federal 
Republic of Germany, 1950-1960 (New York: Garland, 1991), pp. 10-12. 

24 Timothy Lomperis, From People’s War to People’s Rule (Chapel Hill: University 
of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 7-11. For an overview of America’s experience in 
providing military aid, see Hermes, Development of the Role of the U.S. Army Military 
Advisor; Harold Hovey, United States Military Assistance (New York: Frederick A. 
Praeger, 1965); James Lacy, “Origins of the U.S. Army Advisory System: Its Latin 
American Experience, 1922-1941” (Ph.D. diss., Auburn University, 1977). 

30 Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study (Boston: Little, Brown 
and Co., 1976), pp. 141-46, 151-52, 172-77; Harold Nelson, Leon Trotsky and the 
Art of Insurrection, 1905-1917 (London: Frank Cass, 1988), pp. 14-15, 24-25, 31, 
126; Conrad Lanza, “Communist Warfare,” lecture. General Staff School, 1919-1920; 
Cassius Dowell, Confidential Supplement to Military Aid to the Civil Power (Fort 
Leavenworth, Kans.: 1925); Bernard Semmel, ed., Marxism and the Science of War 
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 19-24; Franklin Osanka, ed., Modern 
Guerrilla Warfare; Fighting Communist Guerrilla Movements, 1941—1961 (Glencoe, 
Ill.: Free Press, 1962), pp. 58-71. 

31 Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History , 2 vols. (Garden City, 
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), 1:387; John Pustay, Counterinsurgency Warfare (New York: 
Free Press, 1965), p. 35; Laqueur, Guerrilla , pp. 245, 376, 385; Frank Trager, “Wars 
of National Liberation: Implications for U.S. Policy and Planning,” Orbis 18 (Spring 
1974): 61-68; Mao Tse-tung, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tsetung (Peking: 
Foreign Language Press, 1967). 


29 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


32 James Griffith, “Guerrilla Warfare in China,” Cavalry Journal (September-October 
1941): 12; Ian Beckett, ed., The Roots f Counter-Insurgency: Armies and Guerrilla 
Warfare, 1900-1945 (New York: Blandford Press, 1988), p. 127. 

" Semmel, Marxism and the Science if War, pp. 25-27; Walter Jacobs, “Mao Tse- 
Tung as a Guerrilla—A Second Look,” Inlitary Review 38 (February 1958): 26-30. 

34 John Shy and Thomas Collier, “Revolutionary War,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, 
ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 840-44; Mao, 
Selected Military Writings, pp. 77-80; J. Bowyer Bell, The Myth of the Guerrilla: 
Revolutionary Theory and Malpractice (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1971), p. 36. 

'Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp. 374, 376, 384-85, 396. 


30 



The Counterinsurgency 
Advisory Experience 
1945-1955 


Revolution was in the air in 1945. The ravages of war and occupa¬ 
tion had torn the fabrics of many societies. The end of World War II 
opened the door for additional strife, as competing social, economic, 
and political groups sought to reassemble their broken countries in 
ways that reflected their particular interests. In most cases the antago¬ 
nists confined their battles to the political arena, but occasionally 
the struggles turned violent. Although favoring democratization and 
decolonization, the United States sought to suppress many of these 
revolutions out of fear that they would lead to the establishment of 
Communist regimes. Four countries in particular received consider¬ 
able counterinsurgency support from the United States in the years 
immediately following World War II: China, Greece, the Philippines, 
and Indochina. 


The Chinese Civil War, 1945-1949 

The Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949 continued a struggle that had 
begun in 1927, when the Chinese government under the leadership of 
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his ruling Nationalist Kuomintang 
(KMT) Party tried to exterminate the Chinese Communist Party. 
The Japanese invasion of 1937 partially suspended this conflict, as 
Chiang joined Communist leader Mao Tse-tung in an uneasy alliance 
against the invader. When Japan surrendered to the Allied powers on 


31 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


2 September 1945, Chiang and Mao squared off once again to deter¬ 
mine China’s destiny. 

World War II had worked to Mao Tse-tung’s advantage. Prior to the 
Japanese invasion the Chinese Communist Party had been on the run, 
as the government had forced Mao’s army to flee to north China in the 
famous “Long March.” The KMT’s conventional forces bore the brunt of 
the Japanese invasion, enabling Mao not only to regroup, but to expand 
his guerrilla forces by capitalizing on hostility toward the Japanese invad¬ 
ers. As a result, the Communist movement grew from 40,000 party mem¬ 
bers and 92,000 guerrillas in 1937 to 1.2 million members and 860,000 
soldiers by August 1945, by which point the party controlled nearly 20 
percent of China’s population. Japan’s surrender provided further oppor¬ 
tunities for Mao, as the withdrawal of Japanese troops from northern and 
eastern China created a vacuum that the CCP’s northern-based guerril¬ 
las were better situated to exploit than Chiang’s armies in south-central 
China. The United States did what it could to help Chiang in the race 
to reoccupy northeastern China, transporting nearly 500,000 Chinese 
government soldiers to the north. It also deployed approximately 50,000 
U.S. marines to northern China, ostensibly to facilitate the repatriation 
of Japanese personnel but more pointedly to prevent either the Chinese 
Communist Party or the Soviets, who had invaded Manchuria in the clos¬ 
ing days of the war, from gaining control over key population, transporta¬ 
tion, and mining centers.' (Map 2) 

These partisan actions notwithstanding, the United States genuine¬ 
ly hoped for a peaceful resolution to China’s internal strife. Although 
it officially recognized Chiang’s government, it realized that his 
regime was severely flawed. The Nationalist government was oppres¬ 
sive, inefficient, and corrupt, and many U.S. officials sympathized, at 
least in principle, with the Communists’ call for social, political, and 
economic reform. Moreover, the United States desperately wanted a 
strong, united China to counterbalance Soviet influence in the Far East. 
A new civil war, even if it resulted in a Nationalist victory, threatened 
to invite Soviet encroachment. Consequently, rather than simply back¬ 
ing Chiang, U.S. officials worked toward the peaceful reunification of 
China. The United States hoped to persuade Mao to lay down his arms 
while convincing Chiang to create a reformed government in which 
all political parties could compete through peaceful, democratic pro¬ 
cesses. Toward this end. President Truman sent retired General George 
C. Marshall to China in December 1945 to broker a peace between 
Mao and Chiang. Marshall negotiated a cease-fire in January 1946 
that included the provision of nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers as part of a 
tripartite truce enforcement mechanism. The effort, which marked one 


32 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 



U.S. soldiers meet with Communist guerrillas in an attempt to 
negotiate a truce to the Chinese Civil War. 

of the U.S. Army’s first experiences in international truce enforcement 
and peacekeeping, failed. Neither Mao nor Chiang was interested in 
compromise, and by 1947 the civil war was in full swing. 2 

The Nationalist government labored under a number of severe 
handicaps during the ensuing conflict. Years of war had left the econo¬ 
my in a shambles, and the corrupt and inefficient government had little 
appeal among the masses, many of whom found Communist promises 
of agricultural reform and land redistribution attractive. Though he too 
espoused reform, Chiang proved either incapable or unwilling to make 
the far-reaching changes needed to strengthen his administration and its 
appeal to the common man. So frustrated was the United States with 
Chiang’s lackluster leadership that it sought to replace him, but it never 
found someone equal to the task. 

Chiang’s political failings were exceeded only, in the words of U.S. 
Ambassador J. Leighton Stuart, by “the proclivity of the Generalissimo, 
a man of proved military incompetence, to interfere on a strategic and 
tactical level with field operations.” Foremost among Chiang’s strate¬ 
gic errors was his decision—taken against American advice—to rush 
troops to Manchuria in the wake of the USSR’s withdrawal from that 


33 











Map 2 


























Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


region in 1946. This move overcommitted the government’s already 
dispersed military forces. Moreover, Chiang tended to deploy his 
troops defensively around towns and lines of communications, thereby 
ceding the initiative to the Communists in the countryside. Chosen for 
loyalty rather than talent, Chiang’s generals were unable to compensate 
for his misguided policies. The Nationalists’ poorly trained, ill-treated, 
and unmotivated soldiers paid the price for their leaders’ inadequacies, 
exhibiting in turn a callous disregard for the civilian population that 
further undermined public support for the government. 3 

Mao’s methods differed dramatically from Chiang’s. He moved 
fluidly through the countryside, employing the ancient arts of guerrilla 
warfare, attacking where the Nationalists were weak, retiring to remote 
sanctuaries when they were strong, and relying on ambush and stratagem 
to wear down his opponent. Mao’s real strength, however, was in his rec¬ 
ognition of the political dynamics of warfare. Lacking both the veneer 
of legitimacy and the coercive tools conferred upon the Nationalists by 
virtue of their control over the formal machinery of government, he was 
acutely aware of the necessity of building a firm political and economic 
base among the people. Beginning at the “rice roots” level, Mao created a 
tightly organized, hierarchical politico-military structure that mobilized, 
inspired, and controlled China’s rural population. By skillfully blending 
organizational acumen, propaganda, nationalism, and coercion with an 
ideological vision, the Communist Party succeeded in harnessing China’s 
resources for its particular ends. 4 

Mao especially stressed the importance of proper troop conduct, 
impressing upon his soldiers an eight-point creed: speak politely, pay 
fairly for what you buy, return everything you borrow, pay for anything 
you damage, do not hit or swear at people, do not damage crops, do 
not take liberties with women, and do not ill-treat captives. By fol¬ 
lowing this program, Mao hoped to transform China’s population into 
a hospitable ocean through which the guerrillas could move about as 
easily as fish, taking shelter and sustenance from the human sea that 
nurtured them. 

By the time the civil war renewed in earnest in 1947, the conflict 
had already reached the last of what Mao had postulated to be the 
three stages of a protracted, insurrectionary war. The first stage—the 
development of a mass political movement and an embryonic guer¬ 
rilla capability controlled by the party—and the second stage—in 
which that movement blossomed into full-scale guerrilla warfare—had 
occurred over the past two decades. During the third and final stage, 
Mao employed both guerrillas and large conventional forces to engage 
Chiang in open warfare. 5 


36 






The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


As the war escalated, the inner contradictions of U.S. policy 
became increasingly apparent. Uncomfortable with the Nationalist 
regime and desirous of a peaceful settlement. President Truman had 
suspended arms transfers to China in August 1946. He also circum¬ 
scribed the role of the U.S. Army Advisory Group in China, prohibiting 
personnel from either visiting combat zones or conducting any training 
that might improve the operational performance of the KMT army. 
Moreover, much of the equipment and advice provided by the mission 
had been based on the premise that China’s armed forces would be 
developed slowly in a peacetime environment with the principal task 
of defending China from external aggression. The aid program had not 
been designed for the immediate prosecution of an internal war—a war 
that U.S. policy was trying to prevent. Thus, when the civil war erupted, 
the government’s military forces were neither trained, organized, nor 
equipped to meet the circumstances at hand. 6 

Only with the greatest reluctance did Truman gradually loosen 
the restrictions governing U.S. military aid. This reluctance reflected 
a belief on the part of senior officials that any increase in military 
assistance without a concomitant move on Chiang’s part to implement 
political, social, and economic reforms would be futile. Furthermore, 
U.S. officials feared that an unfettered aid program would lead Chiang 
to believe that the United States was so desperate to stop communism 
that it would have no choice but to “sink or swim” with him, thus allow¬ 
ing the Nationalist government to ignore American calls for reform. 
Still, the United States felt some moral obligation to help the anti¬ 
communists, and in July 1947 it partially lifted the arms embargo. Not 
until late 1947, however, did Washington permit the Chief, U.S. Army 
Advisory Group to China, Maj. Gen. David G. Barr, to advise Chiang 
on military operations. Even then, Washington insisted that Barr con¬ 
fine his advice to informal suggestions, opposing his and Ambassador 
Stuart’s recommendations that the United States assign advisers down 
to the regimental level and establish a formal operational planning 
cell lest such moves embroil the United States in what it increasingly 
regarded as a lost cause. 7 

While Washington continued to limit American involvement in 
the war, Ambassador Stuart occasionally complained that the advice 
the U.S. Army was providing was not responsive to Chinese condi¬ 
tions. In fact, most of the guidance proffered by the advisory group 
was routine in nature, focusing on the establishment of conventional 
command, staff, and logistical systems. But such advice was usually 
sound, both because the essentials of military science and administra¬ 
tion are broadly applicable to all forms of war and because by 1947 the 


37 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Communists were increasingly operating in large division- and corps- 
size units as Mao implemented the third phase of his revolutionary 
strategy. Once Washington changed the advisers’ mission from building 
a conventional army to aiding the Nationalists in the internal war, they 
did indeed adapt to the situation. They advised the government that 
Chinese troops should be trained for both irregular and conventional 
operations and that Chinese divisions should be relatively light, mobile 
formations bereft of the kind of artillery, tanks, and heavy equipment 
found in American divisions of the day. Strategically, their advice was 
equally sound, castigating Chiang for overextending his armies and 
deploying them behind ancient city walls and in innumerable railroad 
blockhouses where they were unable to implement “the American con¬ 
cept of finding, fixing, and destroying the enemy and are subject to the 
dry rot of immobility.”* 

Although they were no students of revolutionary warfare, U.S. sol¬ 
diers also addressed the political aspects of the insurgency. From 1945 
on, senior American officers including Marshall (both as Truman’s 
emissary to China in 1946 and as secretary of state thereafter), Lt. 
Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer (former commander of Allied forces in 
China during World War II and another of Truman’s special emissaries 
to China), and advisory chief Barr had recognized that “the military 
problem in China is inextricably involved in psychological, moral, and 
economic factors.” “The Chinese Communist movement,” Wedemeyer 
told Nationalist leaders in August 1947, “cannot be defeated by the 
employment of force. Today China is being invaded by an idea instead 
of strong military forces from the outside. The only way in my opinion 
to combat this idea successfully is to do so with another idea that will 
have stronger appeal and win the support of the people. This means 
that politically and economically the Central Government will have 
to remove corruption and incompetence from its ranks in order to 
provide justice and equality and to protect the personal liberties of the 
Chinese people, particularly the peasants.” “It should be accepted,” 
he concluded, “that military force by itself will not eliminate commu¬ 
nism.” Included in the list of reforms advocated by U.S. soldiers were 
the introduction of “good government,” the end of police terror, and a 
variety of land and tax reforms. 4 

Reforms of this kind were outside the normal bailiwick of 
American military advisers. Nevertheless, the advisers spoke out on 
these matters because they recognized the inextricable link between 
political and military issues. The areas of political significance to 
which U.S. military personnel could speak to most directly concerned 
the indifference with which Chinese officers treated their men and the 


38 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


arrogant way government soldiers treated the population at large. To 
remedy the situation, U.S. soldiers urged greater troop indoctrination, 
heightened discipline, and the establishment of a more efficient mili¬ 
tary justice system. But punishment alone was not enough, and they 
also advocated the provision of better food, clothing, pay, and medical 
care for soldiers and their families to raise morale and redress some of 
the underlying problems that led soldiers to prey on the public. 10 

By late 1947 Ambassador Stuart had come to the conclusion that 
the U.S. Army could play an even greater role on the civil front than 
just encouraging better discipline and troop care, and he joined Barr 
in advocating the creation of a military government section within the 
Army advisory group. Staffed by soldiers knowledgeable in military 
government techniques and civilians familiar with Chinese political 
and economic problems, the proposed section would advise Nationalist 
forces in civil affairs. Although reflecting certain Maoist influences, at 
its heart the idea was not revolutionary at all. Rather, it merely sought 
to apply traditional principles of international law and military gov¬ 
ernment—principles first codified in U.S. Army doctrine by General 
Orders 100 during the American Civil War—to China’s civil war. Stuart 
and Barr believed that these precepts, which tried to balance humani¬ 
tarian concerns and enlightened administration with military necessity, 
would, if properly implemented, greatly increase both the government’s 
popularity and its control over the nation’s resources." 

Once the Nationalists had been trained in military government 
techniques, Barr envisioned a multiyear campaign in which the gov¬ 
ernment would slowly and systematically spread its control northward, 
starting from its bastions south of the Yangtze River. In contrast to the 
past, Barr recommended that the government not try to increase its 
territory until it had established firm control over the areas it already 
possessed. After occupying a region, Nationalist forces, with the aid of 
U.S. civil and military advisers, would establish “good government” 
and implement agrarian reforms. Food and other relief measures would 
alleviate suffering and win popular support, while the army rooted out 
the remaining guerrillas. To free the army for further offensives, Barr 
proposed that the government create an extensive system of militias to 
maintain control over pacified areas, guard lines of communications, 
and protect the population from any resurgence of Communist intimi¬ 
dation. Only after all of these measures had been undertaken would 
Nationalist forces move north to repeat the process in another area, 
until government control gradually spread to the entire country. 12 

Some Nationalist leaders shared Barr’s vision of an integrated 
politico-military campaign. In fact, official government doctrine 


39 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


espoused similar concepts. As early as 1933, Chiang had concluded 
that anti-Communist warfare was “seventy percent political, thirty 
percent military,” and had supplemented his military operations with 
efforts to stem corruption, stabilize the economy, and improve local 
administration. He reiterated this theme after World War II, telling 
his governors in 1946 that “the government can crush the Communist 
Army in five months, whereas the political fight will take another 
five years” and urging them to develop programs that would improve 
people’s lives and win them over from the Communists. The govern¬ 
ment’s “Manual for Bandit Suppression,” originally written in 1933 
and reissued in 1945, emphasized good troop behavior to gain both 
popular support and intelligence, noting that “the sure road to the 
extinction of the Reds must take as its point of departure the absten¬ 
tion from annoying the people. Recruiting soldiers by force is annoy¬ 
ing to the people; raping of women is annoying to the people. So is 
looting; so is squeezing. Anyone committing any of these crimes is 
certainly to be executed.” The manual also espoused vigilance, secu¬ 
rity, proper march procedures, guerrilla tactics, marksmanship, and 
night operations. Population-control and counterinfrastructure mea¬ 
sures were also a part of Chinese doctrine. As early as 1932 Chiang 
had imposed a neighborhood watch system—called pao chia —based 
on the principle of collective responsibility. 13 

One person who reportedly took these prescriptions to heart was 
General Fu Tso-yi, who led the government’s counterinsurgency 
effort in northern China. Considered an outstanding leader by the 
Americans, Fu believed that an integrated politico-military effort that 
bound the people to the government’s cause through honest adminis¬ 
tration and social reforms was the only way to defeat the insurgency. 
He supported the creation of self-defense organizations controlled by 
local leaders who knew the political and military topography of their 
areas and who identified with the interests of the local population. 
Such militias would be the primary vehicles for intensive intelligence, 
propaganda, and population-control measures designed to mobilize 
the population and destroy the “bandit cadres” that were the inner 
fiber of the Communist movement. Like Barr, Fu believed that, “to 
be effective, this work must be done thoroughly. If it is done only on 
the surface, it would be useless.” He endorsed granting amnesty for 
rank-and-file Communists, but he also avowed that Communist lead¬ 
ers, agents, and civilians who sheltered guerrillas should be “severely 
punished and horribly tortured.” Areas that strongly sympathized 
with the Communists or were otherwise under their control were to 
be cleansed by “scorched earth tactics, hiding grain, carrying away 


40 



The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


able-bodied men, not leaving a stick of wheat or blade of grass for 
the enemy.” 14 

Neither Barr’s nor Fu’s prescriptions were fully implemented. 
Though Chiang often spoke of reform, he made little effort to translate 
words into deeds. Initiatives to improve troop behavior and govern¬ 
mental administration made little headway. While Washington did not 
agree to Barr’s and Stuart’s plan to establish a military government sec¬ 
tion, Nationalist military leaders proved either unwilling or unable to 
implement many of the advisory group’s military programs. By 1948 
most U.S. political and military analysts had concluded that Chiang 
was doomed. Nearly $2 billion worth of grants and credits (about half 
of which were military in nature) had failed to stabilize China, and 
while the Joint Chiefs of Staff advocated additional military aid, even 
they believed that such assistance would only delay the government’s 
inevitable collapse. Only billions more dollars, and perhaps military 
intervention on an equally grand scale, could save the government, 
and no one—politicians, diplomats, or soldiers—wanted that. Rather 
than become sucked into the Chinese vortex, the Truman administra¬ 
tion chose to continue providing limited military aid to the Nationalists 
while simultaneously keeping them at arm’s length. The inevitable 
result followed. During 1948 Communist offensives gobbled up one 
isolated and overextended government garrison after another, and the 
following year Chiang and his supporters fled to Taiwan, leaving Mao 
free to consolidate his hold over mainland China. 

Like Woodrow Wilson during the Russian Civil War, Truman had 
been confronted with the choice of either supporting an unsavory anti- 
Communist regime or of acceding to a Communist victory. He had tried 
to solve the dilemma by walking a policy tightrope, initially assuming the 
mantle of honest broker and, when that did not work, of providing limited 
assistance to the anti-Communists, hoping either to coerce them into 
mending their ways or, should that fail, to minimize U.S. involvement in 
the ensuing collapse. In the end, Truman succeeded in keeping the United 
States out of an extremely costly and possibly unwinnable conflict, but, 
like Wilson before him, he failed to attain his broader policy goals. 1 ' 

For the Army, the Nationalists’ defeat was particularly frustrating. 
Despite the limitations that both the U.S. and Chinese governments had 
placed on them, the Army’s “old China hands” had exhibited a basic 
appreciation for many counterinsurgency fundamentals. Indeed, many 
of the principles that Wedemeyer, Barr, and others had recommended 
in China—including close politico-military coordination; “good gov¬ 
ernment” administration and modest reform; a strategy of progressive 
area clearance; population security; good troop conduct; and aggressive, 


41 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


mobile, offensive operations—would become the hallmarks of American 
counterinsurgency doctrine for years to come. 

The Greek Insurgency, 1945-1949 

While the civil war was raging in China, another insurgency was 
occurring on the other side of the globe, in Greece. Prior to World War 
II a multiplicity of factions—republican, monarchist, socialist, and 
Communist—had struggled to shape the future of that impoverished 
land. Those divisions continued to simmer during the Axis occupation, 
as leftists, anti-monarchists, and nationalists banded together under 
Communist leadership to form a National Popular Liberation Army 
(ELAS). The liberation army used guerrilla techniques to fight not 
only the Germans and Italians, but right-wing groups as well, some 
of which in turn collaborated with the Axis. When British and Greek 
monarchist troops entered Athens on the heels of withdrawing Axis 
forces in the fall of 1944, ELAS attacked them in a bid to seize control 
of the country. The attempt failed, and in February 1945 the warring 
factions agreed to lay down their arms and to resolve their differences 
peacefully. The truce was short lived. Elections in 1946 installed a 
rightist government whose partisans initiated a reign of terror against 
their political opponents. ELAS, which had secreted many of its weap¬ 
ons rather than surrendering them as called for in the 1945 accord, 
re-formed as the Democratic People’s Army and resumed guerrilla 
operations. 16 (Map 3) 

In the ensuing civil war the Communists refined the guerrilla war¬ 
fare techniques that they had learned during the occupation by studying 
Russian and Chinese manuals and by attending training camps run by 
veteran Yugoslav partisans. Operating in small, lightly armed groups, 
the “bandits,” as they were labeled by the government, ambushed 
patrols, mined roads, and raided villages before fading back to forest 
and mountain hideaways. Consciously following Mao’s ten military 
principles, the guerrillas avoided unfavorable confrontations, concen¬ 
trating their forces against weak government detachments and small 
villages before tackling larger prey. Supporting the people’s army was 
the yiafka , a formidable clandestine organization developed during the 
occupation that provided the guerrillas with labor, supplies, guides, 
money, and intelligence. Together with Communist Party cells and 
front organizations, it helped mobilize and control the population in 
support of the insurgency. 17 

Although th q yiafka was vital to the insurgents, so too was the exter¬ 
nal assistance given by Greece’s three Communist neighbors—Albania, 


42 






The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 



Bulgaria, and especially Yugoslavia. These nations provided training, 
equipment, and cross-border sanctuaries to which the guerrillas could 
retreat when pressed by government forces. With this outside help, the 
guerrillas established several base areas along the mountainous north¬ 
ern frontier, where they stockpiled supplies and established “liberated 
zones” that boosted their claims of political legitimacy. 

Thanks in part to resentment over government repression, the 
insurgency grew to approximately 30,000 guerrillas, 50,000 yiafka 
members, and 750,000 sympathizers by the end of 1947. Still, unsavory 
conduct on the part of the insurgents—forcibly recruiting soldiers and 
laborers, extorting supplies, and terrorizing rural communities—also 
cost the Communists much public support. Caught between two brutal 
antagonists and demoralized by the prevailing atmosphere of insecu- 


43 












Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


rity and economic hardship, many people adopted a passive, apathetic 
attitude that probably helped the guerrillas, who hoped that prolonged 
chaos would eventually undermine the government.^ 

Hampered by a collapsed economy and political infighting, the 
government’s response to the insurgency was weak. Advised by the 
British to treat the insurgency as a problem of law and order rather than 
a military conflict, the government initially tried to subdue the guerril¬ 
las using only the national police, the gendarmerie. Staffed largely by 
Axis collaborators bent on settling old scores, this force was generally 
distrusted by the population and incapable of coping with the guerril¬ 
las. The government responded by enlarging the gendarmerie to include 
mobile combat police formations, but this had several disadvantages. 
Not only did this create a rivalry between the police and the army, but 
the gendarmes, lacking proper military training and equipment, proved 
poor soldiers. Conversely, the gendarmerie’s preoccupation with coun¬ 
terguerrilla operations only further undermined its ability to perform 
routine police duties. 14 

In October 1946 the government called in the newly formed Greek 
National Army (GNA), but it was in no better shape than the police 
to combat the guerrillas. The officer corps was racked by factional 
infighting, while the soldiers, many of whom were pre-World War II 
reservists, were old, tired, poorly trained, and indifferently cared for. 
Weakened by an inefficient staff system and political interference, the 
army responded to public pressure for protection from Communist 
raids by dispersing its soldiers into so many small detachments that 
it had few men leftover to conduct offensive operations. As in China, 
such dispersion robbed the government’s forces of the initiative, sapped 
morale, and complicated efforts to improve the organization and train¬ 
ing of the army as a whole. 20 

By 1947 the Greeks, with British help, had begun to develop a 
doctrine for “anti-bandit” warfare that reflected both British colonial 
experience and German counterguerrilla operations in the Balkans dur¬ 
ing World War II, some of which the Greeks had experienced firsthand. 
The emerging doctrine called for aggressive, offensive combat; night 
movements; and deception, all with the purpose of killing guerrillas 
rather than taking ground. A well-planned and -executed encirclement 
with adequate forces was the preferred method of bringing the guerril¬ 
las to battle, but such operations went for naught unless accompanied 
by the systematic destruction of the guerrillas’ clandestine politico- 
military infrastructure. This doctrine was basically sound, but as in 
China, persuading the Greeks to practice what they taught in their staff 
schools was not easy. 21 


44 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 



Greek soldiers engage Communist guerrillas. 


The Greek Army launched its first major offensive in 1947. The 
campaign, which was developed with British advice, set the pattern for 
the rest of the war. It consisted of a series of sweeps and encirclements, 
moving progressively from south to north up the Greek peninsula. Once 
an area was cleared the bulk of the troops moved on to the next area, 
leaving behind a small garrison for security. The endeavor failed. The 
insurgents’ keen intelligence system usually allowed them to learn of 
an impending operation and escape, while those guerrillas caught in an 
encirclement had little difficulty slipping through gaps in government 
lines. Planning and execution were shoddy, with the army frequently 
allocating insufficient time and resources to make the operations truly 
effective. Ultimately, the clearing operations took longer and absorbed 
more troops than the government had anticipated, so that as the army 
moved north it had progressively fewer soldiers to conduct new opera¬ 
tions. By year’s end, over half of the army was tied down performing 
static guard duties, while the guerrillas emerged largely unscathed. 22 

Meanwhile, in February 1947 Great Britain announced that while it 
would continue its advisory effort, it could no longer afford the finan¬ 
cial costs of rebuilding and rearming Greece. Consequently, President 
Truman decided to assume much of this burden. In what became known 
as the Truman Doctrine, the president declared in March that the United 
States was determined “to support free peoples who are resisting sub¬ 
jugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.’’ As in the case of 
China and the subsequent Marshall Plan for Europe, the administration 


45 








Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


believed that the best defense against revolution was “economic stabil¬ 
ity and orderly political process,” and it earmarked less than half of the 
original $300 million aid package for military assistance. 23 

To oversee the aid program, Truman created an American Mission 
to Aid Greece (AMAG), headed by Dwight P. Griswold. Griswold 
shared Truman’s priorities, believing that the “defeat of communism 
[is] not solely a question of military action. . . . Military and economic 
fronts are of equal importance.” He attempted to use his authority to 
produce a well-integrated effort devoid of the type of bureaucratic 
infighting that had all too frequently marred past politico-military 
endeavors. In this he did not succeed. The administration’s failure to 
delineate clearly the relationship between Griswold and the American 
ambassador to Greece, Lincoln MacVeagh, led to a bitter feud that was 
not resolved until late 1948, when Truman appointed Henry F. Grady 
to head both the embassy and the aid mission. Nor did finding the right 
mix of civil and military programs prove to be an easy task. The mili¬ 
tary situation in Greece, as in China, proved too precarious to permit 
any significant civil rehabilitation, while U.S. and British officers alike 
advocated shifting aid priorities toward military assistance. After some 
debate, a rough consensus gradually emerged between U.S. diplomatic 
and military leaders that security concerns had to take precedence over 
political and economic rehabilitation. Consequently, the United States 
not only increased the amount of military aid, but devoted an ever larger 
share of the economic aid package to war-related projects. 24 

Maj. Gen. William G. Livesay headed AMAG’s military compo¬ 
nent, the U.S. Army Group, Greece. As in China, the group’s role was 
entirely logistical, partly because Truman was reluctant to become 
embroiled in Greek internal affairs and partly because the British 
already maintained military and police advisory missions in Greece. 
Consequently, Washington instructed Livesay to limit his advice to 
“personal” observations. This restriction quickly proved unsatisfactory. 
Logistical and technical matters had wide-ranging organizational and 
operational implications that could not be easily segregated. Moreover, 
as in China, the United States came to the conclusion that indigenous 
political and military leaders lacked the administrative skill and politi¬ 
cal will to do what needed to be done to win the war. Whereas China’s 
problems were so massive that they overawed the stoutest of American 
policy makers, the situation in Greece, a small country the size of 
North Carolina, seemed much more malleable. Consequently, Truman 
opted for measures that he had shunned in China. His first move was 
to insert U.S. experts into Greek ministries where they exercised so 
much influence that they controlled “almost all segments of the Greek 


46 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 



General Van Fleet (center, in cap) and Greek officials inspect 

government troops. 


economy.” Then, in December 1947 the Pentagon created the Joint U.S. 
Military Advisory and Planning Group, Greece (JUSMAPG), through 
which the United States assumed “operational guidance of the Greek 
National Army.” 25 

Under the command of first General Livesay and then Lt. Gen. 
James A. Van Fleet, the advisory group provided advice on all aspects 
of the war. It drew up operational and administrative plans, coordinated 
these plans with the Greek General Staff, and then helped to implement 
them. It also stationed advisers at Greek military schools, training cen¬ 
ters, and with each corps and division where they introduced American 
tactical, training, and administrative doctrines. The result, recalled Van 
Fleet, was that “I really had no orders from Washington that I would 
command the Greek forces, but in practice I actually did.” 2 ' 1 

The soldiers the Army sent to Greece believed that certain basic 
principles governed the conduct of all military operations and that a 
correct application of these principles would eventually bring suc¬ 
cess. Among these principles were an appreciation for the importance 
of inspired leadership, professional competence, and high morale; a 
belief that one must gain the initiative through decisive, aggressive 
action; and an adherence to the principle of economy of force that led 
the Americans to shun overly dispersed, passive deployments. With 
these tenets in mind, the advisory group emphasized small-unit patrol 
and combat skills, night operations to catch the guerrillas by surprise, 


47 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


winter operations to exploit the government’s logistical superiority over 
the comparatively ill-clad and poorly supplied irregulars, and tactics 
designed to find, fix, and finish an elusive opponent. 

U.S. soldiers were particularly critical of what they regarded as 
the Greek Army’s overreliance on artillery and air support. All too 
often Greek commanders seemed content to engage the enemy at long 
distances, cautiously advancing their infantry only after a preliminary 
bombardment. Such tactics were ineffective, as the insurgents simply 
withdrew out of harms way, leaving the Greeks to take possession of 
a meaningless terrain objective without having destroyed the enemy. 
Instead, the Americans stressed fire and movement in which the infan¬ 
try advanced to close with and destroy the enemy, either without fire 
support or under covering fire, rather than sitting back and waiting for 
the artillery to drive the enemy off. 27 

U.S. Army advisers revamped the Greek Army training system 
along American lines, introducing unit training and field exercises 
for the first time and sending demonstration platoons made up of 
Greek soldiers trained in American tactics to each infantry division. 
Recognizing that intelligence was critical in bringing the elusive guer¬ 
rillas and their shadowy support network to heel, the advisory group 
stressed reconnaissance skills, the use of civilian spies and informants, 
and improved intelligence staff work. It also supported the British in 
their contention that the gendarmerie should be relieved of combat 
duty so that it could focus on the critical tasks of maintaining law and 
order and ferreting out the yiafka. All of these measures eventually paid 
dividends, although U.S. proposals for creating specially trained long- 
range reconnaissance companies and establishing a central intelligence 
agency to coordinate army, police, and paramilitary intelligence efforts 
were not successfully implemented. 28 

Throughout, American advisers constantly strove to overcome 
what they regarded as the Greek Army’s Achilles heel—its inertia and 
lack of fighting spirit. They pushed for aggressive, continuous action 
and relentless pursuit. They pressed the Greek government to remove 
incompetent officers and to end untoward political interference in 
operational and personnel decisions. Van Fleet also sought to ener¬ 
gize the rank and file, suggesting that the Greek Army replace worn 
out soldiers with younger draftees, increase its troop propaganda and 
educational activities, and improve the lot of the common soldier and 
his family. Ultimately, however, U.S. advisers recognized that military 
morale reflected national morale and that neither would improve until 
some measure of economic relief could be brought to the countryside. 
Consequently, in November 1947 a panel of U.S. Army and British 


48 



The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


military personnel agreed that “greater attention must be paid to the 
rapid rehabilitation ol liberated areas, so that the people in these areas 
feel that the Government has their well-being at heart.” JUSMAPG 
therefore suggested that Greek campaign plans include comprehensive 
civil allairs programs designed to bring economic and social assistance 
to areas as the Greek Army cleared them of guerrillas. 29 This last pro¬ 
posal was not effectively implemented during 1948, and in November 
of that year Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall recommended to 
Secretary of State Robert Lovett and Ambassador Grady that the United 
States shift its economic aid effort from cities to rural areas where the 
real battle for the people was taking place. The diplomats agreed, and in 
1949 the advisory group and the newly formed Economic Cooperation 
Administration collaborated on a number of projects. With U.S. aid, 
the Greek government put men to work on public works projects and 
provided food, building materials, animals, seed, and farm implements 
to refugees returning to areas cleared by military operations. These 
projects were not always sufficiently large or coordinated to ameliorate 
the harsh conditions in the countryside, but they did good work and 
helped consolidate military gains. 30 

JUSMAPG also supported the creation of an armed militia, both 
to free the army from static guard duties and to solidify rural pacifica¬ 
tion. Many such organizations already existed by 1947, but they were 
clearly inadequate. Armed with an incredible assortment of weapon¬ 
ry, these groups were unresponsive to military control, poorly trained, 
indifferently led, and prone to committing excesses that undermined 
their usefulness in promoting pacification. The British opposed arm¬ 
ing civilians, fearing that it would fuel an endless cycle of atrocity and 
retaliation. Livesay’s initial reaction to Greek requests for arms for 
civilians was similarly cool, partly because he shared British concerns 
and partly because he felt that the civilian aid program should pay for 
the weapons, as military aid funds were already overstretched. Still, 
he considered the idea of arming civilians to be “militarily sound” 
as it would give the villagers confidence, and “once the confidence 
of the villagers has been gained they begin to lose their fear of the 
bandits and give information about the bandits which is so vital to 
Greek Army success.” When in the fall of 1947 the Greek govern¬ 
ment proposed the creation of a new type of local defense force—the 
National Defense Corps (NDC)—the United States pledged its sup¬ 
port on the condition that the government disband the older, ad hoc 
militias. Originally conceived of as a type of minuteman formation, 
the defense corps was to be organized into regionally based battal¬ 
ions, officered by military cadres, and filled out by ex-servicemen 


49 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


and old reservists whose familiarity with the local people and terrain 
would prove to be a significant asset in combating the guerrillas. 1 ' 

The initiative proved only partially successful, as the Greeks 
reneged on their promise to disarm the old vigilante organizations and 
employed the National Defense Corps in mobile roles for which it was 
not prepared, thereby leaving the villages it was supposed to be guard¬ 
ing vulnerable to guerrilla raids. In 1948 a new bargain was struck, 
in which some NDC units became static defense troops, while others 
were infused with younger draftees and transformed into mobile “light 
infantry” battalions virtually indistinguishable from regular army for¬ 
mations. These units hunted guerrillas on a regional basis and supple¬ 
mented regular army units during major cordon-and-sweep operations. 
Meanwhile, the government created a new militia organization, the 
Home Guard, to replace the paramilitary groups. Outfitted with over 
50,000 American-supplied small arms, the Home Guard was led by 
reservists; received training in guerrilla, patrol, and ambush tactics; and 
was more tightly controlled by the Army than the older civilian bands. 
It performed good service in 1949, guarding villages and installations, 
monitoring subversives, protecting returning refugees, and otherwise 
freeing the military for more offensive employment. 32 

Closely allied with providing security for the rural population 
was the need to isolate the people so that they could not provide the 
insurgents with the information, food, shelter, and recruits that the 
guerrillas needed to survive. Prior to the time when the United States 
began giving operational advice, the Greek government had devel¬ 
oped three effective, yet harsh, tools to achieve these ends. In addition 
to employing paramilitaries alternately to protect and terrorize the 
population, the government arrested tens of thousands of people sus¬ 
pected of supporting the guerrillas. It executed some and exiled oth¬ 
ers—together with their families and often without trial—to remote 
island internment camps. Though many innocent people were doubt¬ 
lessly swept up in the dragnet, the mass arrests effectively weakened 
the yiafka. Finally, the government also removed entire populations 
from guerrilla-infested areas to drain the “sea” in which the guerrillas 
“swam.” By November 1947 the government had forcibly evacuated 
310,000 people, primarily from the insurgents’ northern base areas. 
By 1949 the number of refugees had swollen to 700,000, roughly 10 
percent of the Greek population. Some of these refugees had left their 
homes voluntarily to escape the war. Others had been forced to flee 
by the guerrillas, who hoped to overburden the government’s already 
strained economic resources. But the majority were the product of 
government relocation campaigns. 33 


50 




The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


The United States assumed an ambivalent stand on these measures. 
Officially, it protested the use of terror, mass arrests, and population 
removal. Certainly these activities made the depiction of the war as 
a Zoroastrian struggle between democracy and totalitarianism more 
difficult for the Truman administration. Moreover, U.S. officials were 
genuinely uncomfortable with such tactics and believed that terror and 
arrest without due process were ultimately counterproductive. But as 
the war dragged on, many Americans felt that the goal of destroying 
communism justified harsh means. “We should realize,” Secretary of 
State Marshall instructed Griswold in 1947, “that stern and determined 
measures, although of course not excesses, may be necessary to effect 
the termination of the activities of the guerrillas and their supporters 
as speedily as possible.” Most of the American diplomatic community 
adhered to this line. 34 

U.S. soldiers were more outspoken. Although eschewing terror, 
General Van Fleet did not inquire too closely into how the Greeks 
treated guerrillas, believing that the “only good Communist is a dead 
one.” He approved of the use of mass arrests and population reloca¬ 
tions to destroy the yiafka and impede guerrilla access to the people. 
Likewise, Maj. Gen. Stephen J. Chamberlin, detailed by the Pentagon 
to study the Greek situation, endorsed laying waste to sections of the 
Greek countryside, noting that the “ruthless removal or destruction of 
food and shelter in the mountain villages would compel all but insignif¬ 
icant guerrilla forces to either retire to the frontiers or accept combat in 
the valleys and plains under adverse conditions.” Consequently, while 
the Greek government occasionally curtailed its utilization of terror, 
mass arrests, and refugee generation in response to outside pressure, 
American support, at least for the latter two actions, helped ensure their 
continuation. 3 " 

Although proffering American methods, Livesay and Van Fleet 
recognized that to recast the Greek Army into a miniature U.S. Army 
was inappropriate. When JUSMAPG designed a standard field division 
for the Greek Army in 1949, it did not try to replicate an American 
division, but rather created a structure adapted to Greek conditions. 
Believing that tanks and heavy artillery were useful in only limited 
situations, the United States provided Greece with weapons suitable for 
mountain operations, such as mortars, machine guns, and pack artillery. 
The advisory group reduced the number of motorized vehicles found in 
infantry battalions and consolidated them into rear echelon formations 
so that combat units would not be road-bound. Nor did Van Fleet have 
any tolerance for expensive and complicated “high tech” solutions. He 
repeatedly rejected proposals by U.S. and British aviators to outfit the 


51 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Greek Army with helicopters and specially trained troops capable of 
operating with aerial resupply, stating that the GNA’s problem lay not in 
moving to a particular location, but rather in motivating it to do some¬ 
thing once it arrived. Horses and mules rather than combustion engines 
were the U.S. Army’s prescription for counterguerrilla mobility in 
Greece. The Army outfitted seven horse cavalry squadrons, improved 
the efficiency of the Greek Army’s pack logistics system, and gave the 
Greek military more mules than trucks.' 6 

Many of the ideas offered by the American advisory group were 
not new. Rather, they mirrored advice that the British military and 
police missions had been giving the Greeks since 1946. Though they 
did not agree on every issue, U.S. and British advisers held similar 
views about the core problems facing the Greek Army and how to fix 
them. 37 Consequently, the American-designed campaign plan for 1948 
did not differ significantly from the British plan for 1947, consisting of 
a series of encirclement-and-sweep operations, moving progressively 
from south to north. After the army cleared each area, the National 
Defense Corps, police, and paramilitaries were to move in to prevent 
guerrilla reinfiltration. What made the 1948 plan different from 1947 
was thus not its overall conception, but the hope that U.S. advice would 
make the Greek Army more effective in executing the plan. In this the 
Americans were destined to be disappointed, for while the Greek Army 
achieved some success, it continued to suffer from many of the underly¬ 
ing institutional weaknesses that had undermined its efforts in the past. 
By year’s end the guerrillas had made good their losses and counterat¬ 
tacked government forces in the north. 38 

Fortunately for the government, several developments occurred 
in 1948 and 1949 that drastically altered the strategic equation in the 
government’s favor. In 1948 the Communists began consolidating their 
forces from bands of 50 to 100 men into “brigades” and “divisions.” 
These larger formations were less mobile, more visible, and more 
dependent on a regular commissary than the smaller guerrilla bands. 
Concomitant with this development was a shift to more positional 
warfare, reflected not only in the creation of fortified base areas along 
the border, but in assaults aimed at capturing medium-size towns. The 
change represented a bid on the part of Communist Party chief Nikos 
Zachariades to transform the guerrilla war into a more conventional 
conflict akin to Mao’s third stage of revolution. Unfortunately for the 
Greek Communists, they were not blessed by the same constellation of 
factors that had made this shift possible in China. Rather than increas¬ 
ing the pressure on the government, the change merely rendered the 
guerrillas vulnerable to the government’s superior firepower. 39 


52 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


Zachariades timing was poor, but he was responding to wider 
developments that he could not entirely control. Growing American 
aid was one factor. Then, in June 1948 the Cominform, a commit¬ 
tee representing the Communist parties of Eastern Europe, expelled 
Marshal Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia over policy differences. This devel¬ 
opment eventually forced the Greek Communists to choose between 
staying in the larger Communist camp or siding with Tito, their chief 
benefactor. Zachariades’ shift to larger formations represented a bid to 
alter the strategic balance inside Greece before that day came. When in 
early 1949 Zachariades endorsed the Cominform’s decision that Greek 
Macedonia should be granted autonomy—a policy widely regarded 
as a stepping stone for its eventual acquisition by Tito’s arch rival, 
Bulgaria—he irrevocably alienated Tito, created a split within his own 
party between nationalists, internationalists, and Macedonian separat¬ 
ists, and gave the Greek government a patriotic platform upon which to 
rally public opinion against the Communists. In July 1949 Tito retali¬ 
ated by sealing Yugoslavia’s borders, cutting the Greek Communists off 
from their primary source of sustenance and refuge. Albania eventually 
followed suit, leaving the guerrillas with nowhere to run during the 
government’s 1949 offensive. 40 

That offensive might still have produced unsatisfactory results 
had there not been a third major development, the appointment, with 
strong American support, of Field Marshal Alexander Papagos to the 
newly created post of supreme commander of the Greek armed forces. 
An undisputed patriot and man of action, Papagos both rallied the 
nation and wielded his unprecedented powers to galvanize the military, 
removing incompetent officers and insisting that his subordinates thor¬ 
oughly execute Greco-American plans. Working closely with Van Fleet, 
Papagos built on past U.S. initiatives in a way that ensured that the 1949 
offensive would be the most effectively conducted campaign to date. 
This, when coupled with missteps and divisions within the Communist 
camp, laid the groundwork for victory. 41 

For 1949, Greco-American planners envisioned a repetition of the 
familiar north to south “strategy of staggered expansion of control,” 
refined by two years’ experience and made more effective by steady 
improvements in the GNA’s command, staff, logistical, and combat 
systems. Before each operation, Greek security forces conducted mass 
arrests, depopulating entire areas and taking “the most strong measures 
against the suspect inhabitants of neighboring villages” who might be 
aiding the guerrillas. After sealing the targeted area in depth to prevent 
guerrilla exfiltration, government troops conducted sweeps and small- 
unit patrols to attack, harass, and pursue the guerrillas, operating at 


53 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


night and in adverse weather more than ever before. The encirclement 
operations of 1949 also tended to be more systematic than those of 
earlier years, as the military took the time to comb suspect areas repeat¬ 
edly rather than simply making a cursory sweep. Special commando 
units, designed by the British and outfitted by the Americans, often 
spearheaded these operations, blending elite morale, high firepower, 
and expertise in small-unit tactics into a potent strike force. Once an 
area had been cleared of guerrillas, the government resettled the evacu¬ 
ees in selected towns secured by barbed wire, fortifications, and Home 
Guards, allowing the people to visit their fields during the day before 
returning to the safety of the protected villages at night. As the situation 
stabilized, the government opened additional defended villages, gradu¬ 
ally resettling the population in a way that extended its control over 
the countryside. After clearing most of southern and central Greece in 
this fashion, the government then assaulted the Communists’ fortified 
northern bastions, crushing them in a well-orchestrated drive backed 
by tanks, artillery, and aircraft that sent the guerrillas reeling across the 
border into Yugoslav internment camps. The war was over. 42 

Papagos and Van Fleet had not achieved a miracle. Even in this 
last campaign, many of the GNA’s old problems persisted, leading 
JUSMAPG to conclude that the performance of Greek divisions was 
still “below the standards expected of infantry troops.” Greek soldiers 
were still too reliant on air and artillery support for American taste, 
while field advisers complained that Greek commanders still ignored 
their advice. In evaluating its success, the advisory group freely 
acknowledged that Yugoslavia’s termination of support for the Greek 
Communists, the guerrillas’ tendency to rely on coercion rather than 
developing stronger ties with the people, and Zachariades’ adoption of 
larger formations and static defenses contributed significantly to the 
government’s victory. Nevertheless, the Greek armed forces still had to 
win the war. Thanks to American assistance and Papagos’ leadership, 
the Greeks had improved sufficiently to get the job done. 43 

Apart from combat operations, Greek, U.S., and British observ¬ 
ers all attributed the government’s success to the use of mass arrests, 
population removal, and village security measures that severed the 
Communists’ hold over the rural population. 44 On the other hand, pro¬ 
gressive reforms and benevolent measures designed to win popular 
favor played only a supporting role. True, American aid resulted in a 
wide variety of road, harbor, housing, health, agricultural, and indus¬ 
trial improvements, yet these were modest at best. Nine years of war 
and revolution had left Greece in such a shambles that by 1950 $2 bil¬ 
lion worth of American and other foreign aid had barely restored the 


54 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 



Greek soldiers assault a guerrilla bunker. 

Greek economy to its pallid 1939 level. Because of the drain caused 
by the insurgency and the huge refugee problem, few of the economic 
goals envisioned by U.S. planners in 1947 had been achieved by 1949. 
American support for civil affairs, refugee relief, and resettlement 
programs ameliorated much human suffering and possibly won some 
converts, but such programs were little more than a band-aid for the 
wounds of a war torn land. Likewise, while the United States was able 
to impose certain economic and financial programs, the Greek govern¬ 
ment ignored or subverted many American prescriptions for social, 
economic, and political reforms. By war’s end, the Greek political sys¬ 
tem had not become significantly more democratic, its economic and 
tax systems were no less regressive, and its record on human rights was 
no more exemplary than when the insurgency had started. American 
wishes notwithstanding, Greece had defeated the insurgency without 
enacting the full panoply of reforms that the Truman administration had 
believed necessary to slay the Communist dragon. 4 " 

The Philippine Insurgency , 1945-1955 

China and Greece were not the only countries in the 1940s where 
war and occupation aggravated prewar conditions to create an environ¬ 
ment ripe for internal disorder. A similar case existed in the Philippines, 
where a prewar peasant movement that sought to redress a variety 
of oppressive socioeconomic conditions joined forces with a largely 


55 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

urban-based Communist Party and other groups to form a united 
front against Japanese occupation during World War II. As in Greece, 
the Communist-led front organized guerrillas—called Huks—and a 
clandestine, village-based support organization—the Barrio United 
Defense Corps—that mobilized the rural population and provided the 
guerrillas with food, shelter, recruits, and intelligence. During the war 
the Huks fought not only the Japanese and their collaborationist allies, 
but American-led non-Communist guerrillas as well. 46 (Map 4) 

The liberation of the Philippines in 1945 brought no relief for the 
peasants. Economic conditions were abysmal and exploitation by the 
land-holding class continued unabated. Meanwhile, the new President 
of the Philippines, Manuel Roxas, not only refused to seat members 
of the Huk-supported Democratic Alliance who had been elected to 
congress, but declared war against the Huks. Between 1946 and 1950, 
President Roxas and his successor, Elpidio Quirino, carried out an ill- 
conceived and ineffectual campaign that stumbled clumsily between 
repression and unfulfilled pledges to redress peasant grievances. 

Insisting that the suppression of the “bandits” was a police rather 
than a military problem, Philippine officials turned the campaign 
over to the Ministry of Interior’s security forces—the Military Police 
Command and its successor, the Philippine Constabulary. Backing the 
Constabulary were a large number of civilian guards—private armies 
raised by landowners to protect their property from peasant unrest. 
These paramilitary forces were undisciplined, poorly paid, and manned 
largely by Axis collaborators and former pro-American guerrillas who 
had scores to settle with the Huks. The Constabulary and guards not 
only acted ruthlessly against the guerrillas and their civilian supporters, 
but also abused the very people they were supposed to be protecting. 
The government’s forces were also poorly trained and scattered in so 
many small outposts that they were unable to take effective, coordi¬ 
nated offensive action. Consequently, they confined their activities to 
conducting road patrols, manning checkpoints, and guarding towns and 
private estates. Major sweep operations, when they occurred, rarely 
lasted more than three days and were usually ineffective. 47 

The Constabulary based its counterinsurgency techniques on 
Japanese methods. This was natural, since many of its members had 
either employed or experienced Japanese counterguerrilla tactics dur¬ 
ing the occupation. Government zona operations—cordon-and-sweep 
actions—were modeled after Japanese tactics, as were other elements 
of the campaign, including the establishment of pao chia -style neigh¬ 
borhood watch organizations, which the Japanese had copied from 
Chinese Nationalists. Government security forces took hostages and 


56 










Map 4 












Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


used Japanese interrogation techniques that included torture, terror, and 
the “magic eye,” in which villagers were brought before a concealed 
informer who would identify Huk supporters. The government also 
emulated Japanese destruction operations that denied food to guerril¬ 
las and punished barrios suspected of harboring irregulars. During the 
insurgency the Constabulary reportedly looted and burned more vil¬ 
lages than the Japanese, creating a large refugee population in the pro¬ 
cess. This method stripped Huk-dominated areas of the people whom 
the guerrillas relied on for support, but it also placed heavy drains on 
the country’s already ravaged economy. 4 ' 

Although the Huks also employed terror and intimidation, their 
excesses paled in comparison with the behavior of government security 
forces. The harshness of Constabulary techniques and their similarity 
to methods so recently employed by the Japanese naturally discredited 
the government in the eyes of the people and drove many into the Huk 
camp. The failure of the Roxas and Quirino regimes to follow through 
on pledges of reform, coupled with the government’s blatant manipu¬ 
lation of the 1946 and 1948 elections, merely reinforced in many 
people’s minds the belief that their grievances could only be redressed 
by force. 44 

Organized in squadrons of 100 men and trained using U.S. Army 
infantry manuals, the Huks posed as innocent peasants by day only to 
emerge at night to raid barrios, attack police posts, and ambush security 
forces before retreating to jungle and mountain base camps to rest and 
refit. Though poorly armed and equipped, by 1950 the Huks under the 
inspired leadership of Maj. Gen. Luis M. Taruc had grown to approxi¬ 
mately 15,000 guerrillas, 100,000 Barrio United Defense Corps mem¬ 
bers, and 1 million sympathizers, asserting virtual control over a four- 
province area in central Luzon. Encouraged by recent events in China, 
Taruc began to seize larger towns in preparation for what he hoped 
would be the final phase of the insurgency, issuing to his subordinates 
the same list of Maoist combat principles used by Greek guerrillas. 50 

By 1950 the Philippine government’s position was sufficiently 
precarious to persuade the United States to play a more active role in 
suppressing the insurgency. True to its philosophy, the Truman admin¬ 
istration considered the Huk situation to be a political problem that 
could only be resolved by instituting political, social, and economic 
reforms that eliminated the underlying causes of unrest. Mindful of the 
reasons for Chiang Kai-shek’s recent defeat, U.S. embassy personnel 
were particularly critical of the Constabulary’s poor behavior, believ¬ 
ing that it undermined the “political-military campaign for the minds 
and loyalties of Filipinos.” Considering the Filipinos to be “precocious 


58 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


children’ who had absorbed only “superficial aspects” of Western cul¬ 
ture and American-style democracy, the embassy endeavored through a 
combination of “continuously applied pressure” and “firm patience and 
understanding to alternately entice and cajole the Quirino regime into 
making the necessary reforms. Chief among these were the need for 
fair and honest elections to restore confidence in the political process, 
financial and tax reform, minimum wage legislation, economic growth, 
and a variety of agrarian reforms designed to ease the crushing burdens 
born by tenant farmers.’ 1 

Economic and political reforms, however, were only part of the 
Truman administration’s prescription. Although policy makers differed 
as to the relative importance of political and military measures, by 
late 1950 a consensus had emerged within the administration that the 
military situation had to be stabilized before political and economic 
measures could take root. Consequently, while the vast majority of the 
$1.3 billion worth of aid the United States would give to the Philippines 
between 1946 and 1956 was economic in nature, the U.S. government 
stepped up its aid program after 1950, providing $117 million in mili¬ 
tary assistance between 1951-1956, a sum that represented nearly 40 
percent of Philippine military expenditures. 52 

The United States had opened a small Joint U.S. Military Advisory 
Group (JUSMAG) in Manila in 1947, but as elsewhere President 
Truman initially limited the group to providing logistical assistance and 
broad organizational advice. American advisers, nearly all of whom 
were U.S. Army personnel, were prohibited from visiting Philippine 
military units and bases and had very little firsthand information on 
the country’s deteriorating internal situation. Washington did not grant 
JUSMAG chief Maj. Gen. Leland S. Hobbs greater latitude in provid¬ 
ing advice on the insurgency until 1950. 53 

Hobbs’ recommendations were similar to the advice Livesay and 
Van Fleet had been giving the Greeks, and indeed JUSMAG con¬ 
sciously emulated certain aspects of the recently successful Greek 
campaign. 54 Like his counterparts in Greece, Hobbs believed that 
inspirational leadership was needed to shake the Philippine security 
forces from their lethargy. He urged the government to consolidate 
its far-flung security detachments into larger units capable of tak¬ 
ing offensive action. He also counseled the Philippine government to 
streamline its security apparatus, realigning the Constabulary under the 
Department of National Defense to effect better coordination, returning 
the Constabulary to more traditional police functions, and transferring 
excess Constabulary men to the army. Once these steps had been taken, 
the advisory group proposed a combination of cordon-and-sweep 


59 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


operations, active patrolling, night movements, and relentless pursuit 
to keep the guerrillas off-balance and drive them away from populated 
areas. It also wanted to wean the Filipinos from their overreliance on 
indiscriminate firepower, which it believed was not an effective substi¬ 
tute for closing with the enemy." 

While aggressive, offensive action represented the American pre¬ 
scription for eliminating the Huks as a military force, Hobbs recognized 
that the government would have to protect the people if it was going to 
succeed in obtaining their assistance. He therefore recommended that 
the Philippine Army reduce military-civilian friction by improving troop 
discipline. He also proposed that it create fortified villages manned by 
policemen, both to free the Army from static defense duty and to cut the 
guerrillas’ access to the population. Increased funding and coordination 
of intelligence programs, an invigorated public information and propa¬ 
ganda campaign, new initiatives to restrict the availability of weapons 
to the guerrillas, and the establishment of an office specifically charged 
with the task of destroying the Communist’s underground organization 
were also part of Hobbs’ pacification program. 5 ' 1 

Although JUSMAG strove to improve troop conduct and was leery 
about relying on paramilitary groups that might become instruments 
of repression, Hobbs urged the Philippine government to drop certain 
peacetime restraints that hindered its ability to root out the Huk under¬ 
ground. Specifically, Hobbs recommended that the government outlaw 
the Communist Party, establish special courts to try dissidents rapidly, 
and suspend habeas corpus for suspected insurgents. The suspension 
of habeas corpus was especially important to Hobbs, not only to 
strike more effectively at the Communists’ covert infrastructure, but to 
improve troop conduct as well. Philippine law required that all prison¬ 
ers either be released or charged with a crime within twenty-four hours 
of being apprehended, with bail being offered to anyone not charged 
with murder. This created a revolving door through which suspected 
guerrillas and their civilian supporters quickly regained their freedom 
and resumed their past behaviors. As had been the case with Union 
soldiers during the American Civil War, Filipino security forces found 
such leniency particularly frustrating and, like their American predeces¬ 
sors, soon took matters into their own hands by adopting policies of “no 
quarter.’’ By suspending habeas corpus in cases related to insurgency, 
the government could improve both its counterinfrastructure capability 
and the treatment of prisoners, an important step in persuading Huks 
to surrender. Programs to rehabilitate former Huks, possibly to include 
the creation of agricultural colonies, were also part of Hobbs’ plan to 
encourage defections and weaken the appeal of Huk propaganda. 57 


60 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


Unlike China and Greece, which already had extensive military 
establishments prior to American involvement, the Philippine Army 
had only two combat-capable infantry battalions in 1950. This force 
was clearly inadequate, and JUSMAG pushed for the rapid expansion 
of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) into twenty-six battalion 
combat teams. As designed by the advisory group, each team was a 
mobile, combined arms force capable of aggressive, independent action 
in the country’s varied and often rugged terrain. 58 

In restructuring the Filipino military, Hobbs and his subordinates 
were mindful ot the special circumstances governing the conflict. Not 
only was the battalion combat team not a carbon copy of an American 
formation, but JUSMAG firmly resisted suggestions that the Philippine 
Army be organized into divisions, noting that it had tailored the armed 
forces for internal security duties and that the military situation did 
not warrant a larger, more conventional structure. The advisory group 
similarly resisted proposals to introduce U.S. combat troops into 
the Philippines or to assign Americans either to advise or command 
Filipino units in the field, not only because it felt the military situation 
did not warrant these measures, but because it believed such actions 
would Americanize the war, wound Filipino pride, and rob the armed 
forces of the very sense of initiative and self-responsibility the advisory 
group was trying to promote. 59 

Although the Philippine government reorganized its armed forces 
in accordance with JUSMAG proposals, Hobbs was only margin¬ 
ally successful in convincing Quirino to adopt his recommendations. 
Then, in the fall of 1950, things began to change. The expansion of 
the Huk insurgency, together with Mao’s victory in China and the 
growth of Communist movements in Korea, Malaya, and Indochina 
created a sense of urgency. So too did the issuance of a report by a 
special Economic Survey Mission, which outlined the seriousness of 
the Philippines’ situation and called for major reforms as a prerequisite 
for additional U.S. aid. Caught between the rising Huk tide and Truman 
administration threats to withhold further assistance unless America’s 
demands were met, Quirino pledged to enact many elements of the 
American reform package. 

Over the next three years Quirino instituted some significant 
reforms. He lowered agricultural rents, inaugurated an anti-usury drive, 
and passed a new minimum wage law. He also acceded to American 
pressure to hold honest elections, an act that eventually cost him the 
presidency but which restored public faith in the democratic process, 
thereby dampening revolutionary sentiments. But perhaps most impor¬ 
tantly, in September 1950 President Quirino acquiesced to American 


61 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Filipino soldiers of the 7th Battalion Combat Team search 

for Huk guerrillas. 


suggestions that he appoint senator and former World War II guerrilla 
Ramon Magsaysay as secretary of national defense. 

No one played a more central role in defeating the Huks than 
Ramon Magsaysay. Not only was he a dynamic leader, but, unlike his 
predecessors, he energetically instituted many of JUSMAG’s propos¬ 
als, thanks in part to his close relationship with the chief of JUSMAG’s 
newly established intelligence and unconventional warfare section, Air 
Force Lt. Col. Edward G. Lansdale. Magsaysay recognized that the 
best way to attack the insurgents was through a well-coordinated politi¬ 
cal and military campaign, what he termed the left hand of friendship 
and the right hand of force. To strengthen his right hand, Magsaysay 
realigned the national command and intelligence systems along the 
lines developed by the advisory group, expanded the army, and cre¬ 
ated an elite Scout Ranger force patterned on Philippine and American 
precedents that effectively conducted many long-range reconnaissance, 
intelligence, and raiding missions, often in the guise of Huks. 60 With 
Lansdale’s help, he developed a significant propaganda apparatus, the 
two men taking great delight in dreaming up new tricks with which to 
outmaneuver the Huks. He demanded honest, aggressive leadership, 
energizing the officer corps through surprise personal inspections, spot 
promotions, and disciplinary actions in which he sacked over 400 offi¬ 
cers. Despite his off-quoted quip to his American-trained officers that 
they should forget everything they had learned at West Point and Fort 


62 



The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


Benning, Georgia, he not only sent hundreds of officers to the United 
States for training, but made U.S. Army manuals and training materials 
the basis for the Philippine Army’s tactical, intelligence, psychological 
warfare, and logistics doctrines. American-designed training programs 
that stressed conventional small-unit patrol and combat tactics, night 
operations, and olfensive action formed the core of military training 
under Magsaysay. Inspection visits by JUSMAG personnel, as well as 
the eventual placement of US. advisers at AFP regional headquarters, 
helped ensure that the new programs and doctrines were properly 
implemented, and although the Philippine advisory group never became 
involved to the same degree as the Greek advisory group in advising 
combat units in the field, it drafted tactical guidelines and operational 
blueprints. In fact, American doctrines required only minor modifica¬ 
tions to fit Philippine conditions, and, while the Filipinos demonstrated 
ingenuity in making such adaptations, they did not develop any new 
tactics during the course of the war. 61 

Although Magsaysay would have liked to abolish many of the pri¬ 
vate security forces whose undisciplined conduct undermined pacifica¬ 
tion, he realized that he could not secure the countryside without them. 
Consequently, he sought to improve their performance by attaching 
military personnel to them and giving them radios with which to coor¬ 
dinate their actions with the army. He supplemented the private armies 
by raising an additional 10,000 civilian commandos, trained and led by 
AFP regulars, who guarded barrios, gathered intelligence, apprehended 
members of the Huk underground, and provided guides and auxiliaries 
to the army. The irregulars freed the Philippine Army for offensive 
operations, consolidated the army’s successes in the field, and kept the 
population separated from the guerrillas. As such, they played a vital 
role in the government’s pacification campaign, though they continued 
to commit excesses. 62 

While Magsaysay wielded the stick of “all-out force” in his right 
hand, he held out with his left the carrot of “all-out friendship.” Under 
the label of “civic action,” a term coined by Lansdale, Magsaysay set the 
armed forces to doing many of the same things the U.S. Army had done 
fifty years before during the Philippine W"ar of 1899-1902, building over 
4,000 schools, repairing roads and bridges, digging wells, distributing 
food and medical supplies, and performing other public works. Troops 
carried “candy for kids,” military lawyers represented indigent farmers 
in court, and Filipino and U.S. soldiers observed polling places to ensure 
fair elections. Magsaysay ameliorated the treatment of prisoners and 
improved troop discipline by promptly investigating citizen complaints 
and instituting an American-financed pay raise that helped reduce for- 


63 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


aging and corruption. To ensure that these initiatives were being imple¬ 
mented, Magsaysay centralized control over the “attraction program” 
and propaganda campaigns by creating a civil affairs office within the 
Department of National Defense placing what would normally have 
been civilian programs under military management, and installing about 
a hundred officers in civil posts to energize the lethargic bureaucracy. 63 

Perhaps the most notable of the AFP’s civic actions was the estab¬ 
lishment of the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR). The devel¬ 
opment corps had its genesis in an August 1950 JUSMAG proposal to 
establish a rehabilitation colony for captured Huks. Magsaysay built 
on this idea, creating several remote jungle camps where former Huks, 
leavened by a cadre of reliable veterans, were given land on which to 
start a new life. The Army assisted by clearing the land, building roads 
and community facilities, and providing medical care, tools, credit, and 
advice. The program had tremendous public relations value. It stole 
the thunder from the Huks’ slogan “land for the landless,” encouraged 
Huk defections, and seemed to demonstrate the government’s commit¬ 
ment to meaningful land reform. Once Magsaysay became president in 
1953, he created a number of other agricultural reform and resettlement 
initiatives, further cementing the image of progress among foreign and 
domestic observers alike. 64 

Magsaysay’s combined politico-military offensive won praise from 
U.S. Army observers who noted with some relief that the Filipinos had 
finally realized “that the key to success in dealing with the Huks is the stop¬ 
ping of their support from the population.” By 1952 Filipino-American 
initiatives had clearly wrested the initiative away from the Huks. Cordon- 
and-sweep operations broke up guerrilla formations and drove them away 
from populated areas, while intelligence agents, police, and paramilitary 
forces controlled the population and attacked the Communist infrastruc¬ 
ture. Protected from guerrilla retaliation, encouraged by government 
successes, and swayed by the government’s propaganda and civic action 
initiatives, an increasing number of people cashed-in on rewards by pro¬ 
viding information about the Huks to the government. The year following 
Magsaysay’s election as president, General Taruc surrendered. By 1955 
fewer than 1,000 Huks remained under arms, living in remote mountain 
areas more as fugitives than as guerrillas. 65 

The Philippines succeeded in suppressing the Huks by follow¬ 
ing America’s formula of implementing military measures “hand in 
hand” with political reforms. Achieving this “judicious combination” 
had required a significant amount of U.S. intervention—goading the 
Filipinos into action, designing initiatives, and financing revitalization 
programs. Thanks in large measure to Magsaysay, the Filipinos rose to 


64 



The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


the challenge and applied ingenuity and determination to crafting poli¬ 
cies along the lines advocated by U.S. representatives. 66 

Yet the government’s success should not overshadow significant 
deficiencies in the counterinsurgency effort. Terror and misconduct 
had continued, albeit on a lesser scale. Nor had the AFP’s professional 
competence improved overnight. In 1951 JUSMAG bemoaned the fact 
that the Philippine military was still too widely dispersed in passive 
deployments, still poorly trained, and still insufficiently attuned to the 
necessity of unearthing the Huk underground. A year later Filipino per¬ 
formance had improved markedly, yet the advisory group complained 
that the Philippine armed forces still exhibited a reluctance to come to 
grips with the enemy. Moreover, after the army had succeeded in break¬ 
ing up Huk concentrations, both it and JUSMAG had clung to using 
large encirclement operations once their utility had passed, shifting 
only belatedly to a strategy of saturation patrolling to meet the changed 
circumstances of the campaign. 67 

Shortcomings on the military side of the campaign paled, however, in 
comparison with those on the civil side. Despite making some changes in 
the nation’s fiscal and economic structure in response to American prod¬ 
ding, most of the government’s socioeconomic reforms proved cosmetic 
and superficial. The AFP’s civic action program was not fully imple¬ 
mented until after the military had turned the tide against the guerrillas, 
and it barely began to satisfy the tremendous socioeconomic problems 
in the countryside. Despite some modest initiatives to help the farmer, 
meaningful land reform had been “for all practical purposes a dead let¬ 
ter” during the Quirino regime. Under the Quirino administration the 
plight of many small, independent farmers actually worsened rather than 
improved. Between 1948 and 1952 the percentage of Filipino farmers 
who did not own land increased from 37 percent to 46 percent. EDCOR, 
Magsaysay’s much touted resettlement program, proved to be more of 
a propaganda tool than a meaningful experiment in Huk rehabilitation 
and land reform. By 1954 the government had resettled only 246 former 
guerrillas in development corps communities. By September 1959 this 
number had fallen to 221, a mere 21 percent of 1,046 settlers then living 
in EDCOR projects. When one considers that the total number of people 
(both Huk and non-Huk settlers and their families) living in EDCOR 
settlements in 1959 totaled only 5,709 people in a nation of over 19 mil¬ 
lion, the propagandistic nature of the development corps becomes clear. 
Other reform measures initiated by Magsaysay during his presidency 
(1953-1957), while well intentioned, also failed to make a dent in the 
nation’s rural problems, and by 1963, 70 percent of Filipino farmers were 
landless tenants. 6 " 


65 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


As in Greece, the United States had lacked the leverage to compel 
the Filipinos to enact deeper socioeconomic reforms, with the result that 
the hand of force, rather than the hand of friendship, had played the pre¬ 
dominate role in defeating the Huks. Hard measures—including arrest 
without trial, destruction of food and shelter in guerrilla-controlled 
areas, hostage taking, reprisals, and the occasional forcible relocation 
of civilian populations—had all been integral to the government’s cam¬ 
paign. Civic and psychological actions, while important, had ultimately 
played an ancillary role to the military effort. Ironically, many Filipinos 
and Americans became so caught up in their own propaganda about 
EDCOR, candy for kids, and other unconventional programs and tricks 
that they lost sight of the fact that most Huks surrendered because they 
tired of living on the run from the government’s increasingly effective 
security forces. Unconventional techniques notwithstanding, Philippine 
and American counterinsurgents had been able to break the back of the 
Huk rebellion by intelligently adapting the age-old American dictum of 
“Find ’em, Fight ’em, Finish ’em” to Philippine conditions. 69 

The Indochina War, 1945-1954 

In contrast to Greece and the Philippines, where U.S. advisers 
played a significant part in orchestrating successful counterinsur¬ 
gency campaigns, the United States assumed a less direct—and ulti¬ 
mately unsuccessful—role in a fourth major conflict of the period, 
the Indochina War. A French colony, Indochina had been occupied by 
Japan during World War II. French defeats in Europe and Asia during 
that war greatly weakened French prestige and fueled proindependence 
sentiments throughout Indochina. When Allied forces arrived to take 
control of Indochina from the Japanese in the fall of 1945, they found 
that much of the region’s three political entities—Vietnam, Laos, and 
Cambodia—were already under the control of nationalist groups. This 
was particularly true in the northern reaches of Vietnam, where Ho 
Chi Minh’s Communist-dominated Viet Minh organization was quite 
strong. After a year of political and military sparring, a full-blown 
war erupted between the Viet Minh and the French in December 1946. 
(Map 5) 

In trying to reassert its authority over Indochina, France employed 
several traditional colonial military techniques, including raids, encir¬ 
clements, and tache d’huile (“oil spot”) operations. None of these 
methods succeeded, as the French attempted to reclaim too quickly far 
more territory than their meager expeditionary force could effectively 
control. Moreover, the French seriously underestimated both the depth 


66 








Map 5 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


of nationalist sentiment among the Vietnamese people and the ability of 
the Viet Minh to harness that sentiment. Using Maoist methods, Ho Chi 
Minh effectively mobilized large segments of the Vietnamese people 
in support of a war of national liberation. Under increasing pressure 
from both the Viet Minh and world opinion, France grudgingly granted 
a veneer of autonomy to the associated states of Laos, Cambodia, and 
Vietnam while still preserving its colonial administration—a political 
half measure that failed to defuse the independence movement. 70 

France’s position in Indochina was rather bleak when, in June 1950, 
the first shipment of American military aid arrived. Despite its general 
opposition to colonialism, the United States government had decided 
that it could not permit Indochina to fall under the ever-lengthening 
shadow of international communism. Growing Cold War tensions and 
the necessity of winning French help in creating an effective counter¬ 
weight to the Soviet bloc in Europe heavily influenced the decision, as 
did the recent Communist takeover of neighboring China. 71 

The aid arrived none too soon. Following his 1949 victory in 
China, Mao Tse-tung had begun sending truckloads of arms, ammuni¬ 
tion, and advisers into Indochina to succor his Vietnamese comrades. 
With this assistance, Ho and his chief military commander, General 
Vo Nguyen Giap, had begun to transform the Viet Minh’s ragtag guer¬ 
rilla bands into quasi-conventional 10,000-man divisions. By 1950 
Giap had five such divisions at his disposal in northern Vietnam and 
was ready to launch the third and final phase of Vietnam’s Maoist- 
style revolution. 72 

The 1950 offensive succeeded in limiting French control in the 
north to the Red River Delta, a region France attempted to secure by 
constructing a heavily fortified perimeter known as the de Lattre Line 
after the French commander in Indochina, General Jean de Lattre de 
Tassigny. Buoyed by his success, Giap tried to take the delta by storm 
the following year but suffered a bloody repulse. As had happened in 
Greece just a few years before, the shift to conventional warfare had 
proved premature, as Giap’s divisions were no match for the French 
in positional combat. Unlike the Greek Communists, however, the 
Viet Minh enjoyed the benefits of a deep reservoir of popular sup¬ 
port, a highly developed and disciplined political infrastructure, and 
an uninterrupted source of external supply. These factors enabled the 
Viet Minh to weather the defeats of 1951. Recognizing that they had 
acted prematurely, Ho and Giap returned to guerrilla warfare, keeping 
the French off-balance while studiously avoiding set-piece confronta¬ 
tions. Meanwhile, Giap carefully nurtured his regulars back to health 
in the safety of his northern mountain redoubts. With Chinese help, he 


68 



The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 



Franco-Vietnamese soldiers search for Viet Minh guerrillas in a 
village in the Red River Delta. 


continuously upgraded their training and armament, so that by 1953 
many Viet Minh regular battalions were better armed than their French 
counterparts. 73 

Thanks in part to American assistance, French military forces in 
Indochina grew in strength and capability as well, reaching 500,000 
men by mid-1953. No less than 350,000 of these men, however, were 
tied down guarding towns, outposts, and lines of communications, with 
the de Lattre Line’s 1,200 fortifications absorbing some 100,000 sol¬ 
diers. These static deployments enabled the highly mobile and elusive 
Viet Minh to gain local superiority at any given point despite France’s 
overall numerical advantage. The result was an enervating stalemate. 
The Viet Minh dominated virtually all of northern Vietnam and much 
of the rural south as well, while the French controlled the major cit¬ 
ies and the fortified salient in the Red River Delta, although even this 
supposedly secure area was heavily infiltrated by tens of thousands of 
Communist guerrillas. 74 

In 1953 a new French commander, Lt. Gen. Henri-Eugene 
Navarre, pledged to break the stalemate by reorganizing French 
forces and infusing the army with a more offensive spirit. With the 
help of some additional troop units from France and materiel from 
the United States, Navarre planned to consolidate his forces so as to 
free up a significant strategic reserve capable of taking the war to the 
enemy. While elite parachute units, Vietnamese light infantry, and 


69 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


tribal irregulars kept the enemy off-balance through raids and guer¬ 
rilla-style actions, Navarre proposed to invigorate France’s heretofore 
halfhearted efforts at creating a large Vietnamese National Army 
whose troops could assume most of the responsibility for pacification 
and static security missions. This would then allow him to consolidate 
his veteran French formations—which were not organized into any¬ 
thing larger than regiment-size units—into regular divisions capable 
of conducting sustained, large-scale operations against the enemy’s 
main forces and bases. 

The Navarre plan won the approval of both the French and 
American governments, with the newly installed Eisenhower admin¬ 
istration pledging $385 million in additional aid to help implement 
it. The results, however, were disappointing. The divisions were never 
formed, the expansion of the Vietnamese National Army proceeded 
slowly, and the vast majority of French troops remained tied down 
in static positions. Navarre did initiate greater offensive activity, but 
his operations were often of questionable military value and had the 
effect of dispersing his painfully accumulated reserves to little effect. 
Though he inflicted some damage on his adversaries, all too often the 
nimble guerrillas managed to elude his nets, fighting when it served 
their purpose, avoiding the French when it did not. Then, in the winter 
of 1953-1954, Navarre made the mistake of committing approximately 
17,000 of his best troops to a remote outpost called Dien Bien Phu in 
northwestern Vietnam. 7 ' 

Navarre intended that the deployment to Dien Bien Phu would 
thwart a possible Viet Minh invasion of Laos. He also thought that 
the isolated outpost would prove an irresistible lure to the one or two 
Communist divisions he believed were operating in the area and which 
he hoped would eviscerate themselves on the garrison’s defenses. 
It proved a serious miscalculation. Rather than facing one or two 
divisions armed with a few dozen artillery pieces, the defenders of 
Dien Bien Phu were soon surrounded by five Viet Minh divisions 
equipped with several hundred artillery pieces and rocket launchers. 
Outnumbered and outgunned, the French received another shock when 
a ring of Communist antiaircraft guns made aerial resupply of the 
besieged outpost problematic. Chinese aid had truly transformed the 
Viet Minh into a potent, quasi-conventional battle force, and in May 
1954 the beleaguered garrison capitulated. 76 

Giap followed up his stunning victory with a ten-division offensive 
that compelled the French to abandon a large segment of the Red River 
Delta. Reeling from these defeats, a weary French government has¬ 
tened to the peace table. In June an international conference at Geneva 


70 




The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 



Franco-Vietnamese soldiers parachute into Dien Bien Phu. 


granted full independence to Laos, Cambodia, and a divided Vietnam. 
The Geneva conferees placed all of Vietnam north of the 17th Parallel 
under Communist control, while everything south of that line was to 
be administered by an indigenous non-Communist regime backed by 
the French. Although the convention called for the eventual reunifica¬ 
tion of Vietnam through general elections, the government of South 
Vietnam refused to sign the accords. In actuality, both the North and the 
South were committed to the destruction of the other and the eventual 
reunification of the entire country under their respective auspices by 
any means possible, a situation that would ultimately lead to twenty 
more years of bloody civil war. 77 

The United States Army played virtually no role in shaping the 
strategies, tactics, and doctrines employed by France in Indochina. 
A proud people with a rich heritage of colonial warfare, the French 
neither sought nor accepted U.S. advice on the conduct of the war. 
Like so many other American aid missions of the period, the military 
assistance organization in Indochina was devoted entirely to adminis¬ 
trative and logistical functions. Its personnel neither advised the French 
on military operations nor accompanied them in the field. The French 
tightly restricted the information they gave to the aid mission and rarely 
revealed their operational plans to their allies. They also barred U.S. 
military personnel from having any direct contact with the Vietnamese 
National Army. Thus the French consulted U.S. officers neither about 
the construction of the de Lattre Line nor the deployment to Dien Bien 


71 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Phu, and they did not provide the Army with the operational details of 
the Navarre plan. 78 

Though U.S. soldiers had virtually no influence over the con¬ 
duct of the war, they were not without their opinions on the conflict. 
Throughout the war, senior U.S. officers, including Army Chief of 
Staff General J. Lawton Collins, had repeatedly warned that American 
military aid would not be effective in suppressing the insurgency unless 
that aid was carefully integrated into an overall program of political and 
economic reforms, including meaningful independence for the people 
of Indochina. Without such reforms France would not be able to win 
much support among the Vietnamese people, and without such support 
the French would never be able to gather the intelligence they needed 
to successfully root out the shadowy Viet Minh organization. U.S. sol¬ 
diers also argued, as they had in China, Greece, and the Philippines, 
that the key to victory lay in continuous, aggressive infantry action. 
They sharply criticized France for adopting an overly passive, static 
defensive posture that ceded the moral and military initiative to the 
Viet Minh. They suggested that the French were too road-bound in 
their movements and conventional in their thinking and believed that 
they needed to adjust their organizations and tactics more completely 
to the realities of Asian guerrilla warfare. U.S. soldiers recommended 
that France expand its unconventional warfare capabilities and form 
more effective Vietnamese military institutions, including an army 
capable of independent operations, light infantry battalions for pacifi¬ 
cation support, and a village-based militia that could both protect the 
population from Communist intimidation and free the regular forces for 
offensive action. Finally, the Americans pressed the French to mimic 
the Viet Minh by consolidating their disparate, ad hoc formations into 
regular combat divisions that would have the administrative and logis¬ 
tical wherewithal to undertake sustained offensive operations against 
enemy main force units and bases. While these formations dislodged 
the Communists from their redoubts, small units of raiders could harass 
the Communists using guerrilla tactics while indigenous auxiliaries, 
backed by intelligence and psychological warfare units, secured and 
pacified the countryside from the baleful influence of the Viet Minh 
infrastructure. These concepts mirrored similar sentiments expressed 
by U.S. military advisers in China, Greece, and the Philippines, and 
indeed, one American plan for the pacification of Indochina was spe¬ 
cifically based on the strategy of progressive area clearance employed 
by Van Fleet during the recently concluded Greek Civil War. 79 

France did in fact attempt at one time or another to implement 
many of the suggestions advocated in the American program but 

72 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


never to the sat sfaction of U.S. military observers. Civilian analysts 
were similarly * ritical of France’s performance. Like their uniformed 
colleagues, U.L>. diplomats were forever pressing France to adopt 
more meaningful political and economic concessions in Indochina. 
The United States even supplemented its massive military aid pro¬ 
gram with a modest package of economic and technical assistance 
designed to improve the lot of the Vietnamese peasant and win his 
support for the anti-Communist cause. American-funded programs 
promoted literacy, constructed roads and bridges, dug wells, resettled 
refugees, inoculated civilians, and regrouped small villages into larg¬ 
er, more defei sible settlements. Ultimately, however, the modest size 
of these efforts, American ignorance about conditions in Indochina, 
French intransigence, and Vietnamese corruption all conspired to 
limit the effec iveness of such programs. Unable to influence suffi¬ 
ciently France' conduct of the war and unwilling to intervene directly 
in what everyc ^e acknowledged was an extremely difficult situation, 
the United Sta 3S could do nothing more than watch with despair as 
northern Vietn .m fell into the Communist orbit. As for the newly 
independent, French-backed government in southern Vietnam, years 
of colonial maladministration and impolitic policies bequeathed to 
that unfortunate regime a population that was generally sympathetic 
to the Viet Minh. Whether the government could overcome this handi¬ 
cap remained to be seen." 0 


73 


Notes 


1 Beckett, Roots of Counter-Insurgency, pp. 127-36; Lomperis, People’s War to 
People’s Rule, p. 138; Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp. 241, 247. 

2 For details of the Army’s peacekeeping effort in China, see Andrew Birtle, “The 
Marshall Mission: A Peacekeeping Mission That Failed,” Military Review 80 (March- 
April 2000): 99-103; Larry Bland, ed., George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to 
China, December 1945-January 1947 (Lexington, Va.: George C. Marshall Foundation, 
1998); The Complete Records of the Mission of General George C. Marshall to China, 
December 1945-January 1947 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1987); John 
Beal, Marshall in China (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970); Wesley Wilson, “The 
U.S. Army’s Contribution to the Marshall Mission in China, January 1, 1946 to March 
1, 1947” (Master’s thesis, University of Maryland, 1957); Marshall’s Mission to 
China, December 1945-January 1947: The Report and Appended Documents, 2 vols. 
(Arlington, Va.: University Publishers of America, 1976). 

3 Quote from State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 
1948, vol. 8, The Far East: China (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 
1973), p. 244, and see also pp. 422-23. State Department, United States Relations with 
China (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1949), p. 358; Final Report of 
the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Republic of China, pp. 9-10, in 893.20 
Mission/4^449, Records of the Department of State, Record Group (RG) 59, National 
Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C. 

4 Mao, Selected Military Writings , pp. 217,229,302-03; Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency 
Era, pp. 7-11. 

Mao, Selected Military Writings, pp. 210-14, 343; Pustay, Counterinsurgency 
Warfare, pp. 32-38; Asprey, War in the Shadows, 1:387-91. 

6 U.S. Relations with China, pp. xv, 339, 346, 354; FRUS, 1948, 8:243^44, 247^48; 
Final Report of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Republic of China, pp. 
4-5; Memo, Maj Gen John P. Lucas, Ch, Army Advisory Group, China, 2 Sep 47, in 
091 China, 1946—48, Plans and Operations Division (P&O), Records of the Army Staff, 
RG 319, NARA. 

7 The proposal to create an American planning group was based on the recent estab¬ 
lishment of such an entity in Greece. Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall, Army 
Chief of Staff General Omar N. Bradley, and former Army chief and then Secretary of 
State George C. Marshall all opposed the idea lest such an action further enmesh the 
United States in the Chinese imbroglio. U.S. Relations with China, p. 324; FRUS, 1948, 
8:91-96, 244-47; FRUS, 1947, vol. 7, The Far East: China, pp. 754, 877. 

Quote from FRUS, 1947, 7:392. U.S. Relations with China, pp. 136, 176, 316, 
336-37; Msg, Army Advisory Group to War Department (WD), 10 Oct 47, box 3, 
General files, Entry (E) 90, Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group, Republic of China, RG 
334, NARA. 

9 First quote from U.S. Relations with China, p. 810, and see also pp. 131, 174, 
211-13. Second quote from ibid., pp. 758-59. Third quote from ibid., pp. 257-58. 
FRUS, 1947, 7:389, 754-55, 764-814; Albert Wedemeyer, Wedemeyer Reports! (New 
York: Henry Holt, 1958), pp. 394-95; Edward Cray, General of the Army: George C. 
Marshall, Soldier and Statesman (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), p. 634; Ltr, Barr 


74 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


to Stuart, 5 Jun 48, box 4, General files, E 90, Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group, 
Republic of China, RG 334, NARA. 

10 U.S. Relation _ with China , pp. 759-60. 

11 Ibid., p. 336; FRUS, 1947 , 7:393, 922; FRUS, 1948 , 8:248-49, 498. 

i_ Ltr, Barr to Stuart, 5 Jun 48; Outline of Two-Year Strategic Plan for the Ministry 
of National Defense, 21 Jul 48, box 4, General files, E 90, Joint U.S. Military Advisory 
Group, Republic of China, RG 334, NARA; FRUS, 1948, 8:422-23. 

13 First quote from Beckett, Roots of Counter-Insurgency, p. 133. Second quote 
from Wilson, “The U.S. Army’s Contribution to the Marshall Mission,” p. 83. Third 
quote from Manual for Bandit Suppression, Sep 45, p. 7, atch to Rpt, Asst Mil Attache, 
Peiping, China, 23 Jan 47, sub: Handbook for Suppressing Bandits, 339026, Intelligence 
Document (ID) file, G—2, RG 319, NARA. Mao, Selected Military Writings, p. 410. 

14 First and second quotes from Rpt, Asst Naval Attache, Peiping, China, 26 Aug 48, 
sub: China—Army and Related Organizations, p. 3, 0493142. Fourth quote from ibid., 
p. 4. Third quote from Rpt, Mil Attache, Nanking, 29 Jun 48, sub: Strategy and Tactics 
of North China Bandit Suppression HQ, 475708; Rpt, Mil Attache, Nanking, 3 Jun 48, 
sub: Fu Tso-yi’s F inciples of Communist Suppression, 471145. All in ID, G-2, RG 
319, NARA. 

15 FRUS, 1947 , 7:659-60; FRUS, 1948, 8:132-34; U.S. Relations with China, pp. 
x-xii, 252, 281, 352-53, 380-84, 389-94, 770. 

16 Michael Shafer, Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency 
Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 167-72; Hugh Gardner, 
Guerrilla and Counterguerrilla Warfare in Greece, 1941-1945, Office of the Chief of 
Military History, 1962, p. 9, CMH; Thomas Greene, ed., The Guerrilla, and How To 
Fight Him (Washington, D.C.: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967), p. 67. 

17 Greene, The Guerrilla , pp. 69-70, 78-79; Edward Wainhouse, “Guerrilla War in 
Greece,” Military Review 37 (June 1957): 20-22; Rpt, Mil Attache, Greece, 22 Mar 49, 
sub: Organization of the Bandit Forces and Tactics Employed, Historians files, CMH. 
Compare Mao’s ten principles as related by Otto Heilbrunn, Partisan Warfare (New 
York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967), pp. 168-69, with instructions issued by the National 
Popular Liberation Army during World War II as described by Frank Lillyman, Guerrilla 
Warfare in Greece (Student paper, Infantry Officer Advanced Course [IOAC], Infantry 
School, Fort Benning, Ga., 1952-53), pp. 11-12, and by the Democratic People’s Army 
as found in Greek General Staff, Special Intelligence Pamphlet, Bandit Methods, Mar 
49, Incl to Rpt, Mil Attache, Greece, 23 May 49, sub: Guerrilla Tactical Methods, 
Historians files, CMH. 

18 “The Greek Guerrillas—How They Operate,” Intelligence Review 156 (March 
1949): 33. 

19 Edgar O’Ballance, The Greek Civil War, 1944-1949 (Washington, D.C.: Frederick 
A. Praeger, 1966), p. 129; Greene, The Guerrilla , p. 76; William Needham, Paramilitary 
Forces in Greece, 1946-1949 (Student paper, Army War College [AWC], 1971), pp. 
28-29. 

20 Greene, The Guerrilla , pp. 94-95; Rpt, Joint U.S. Military Advisory and Planning 
Group, Greece (JUSMAPG), 1 Oct 48, sub: Greek Army Operations, 1948, an. A to Rpt, 
JUSMAPG, 1 Oct 48, sub: Estimate of the Current Military Situation in Greece, 091 
Greece, P&O, 1946—48, RG 319, NARA. 

21 Greek General Staff, Suppression of Irregular (Bandit) Operations, n.d., Historians 
files, CMH; Greek Staff College, curricular material, Precis Internal Security 3, Jan 


75 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

47, and Anti-Bandit Warfare Supplement to Inf 2, Oct 47, both in NS-16284, CGSC 
Library archives, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Compare these materials to British concepts 
presented to the Greek high command in December 1946, as found in Rpt, Mil Attache, 
Greece, 2 Jan 47, sub: Anti-Bandit Operations, app. A, British Ideas on Internal Security, 
925947, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. 

22 Rpt, Maj Gen S. J. Chamberlin to Chief of Staff, Army (CSA), 20 Oct 47, sub: 
The Greek Situation, pt. 2, p. 3, 868.00/10-2047, RG 59, NARA; Alexander Papagos, 
“Guerrilla Warfare,” Foreign Affairs 30 (January 1952): 222-24; Memo, Maj Gen S. B. 
Rawlins, British Mil Mission, Greece, n.d., sub: Notes on the GNA and Its Problems 
Prepared in Connection with the Visit of Commander in Chief MELF to Athens, August 
1947, 091 Greece, P&O, 1946-48, RG 319, NARA. 

22 Quotes from Robert Packenham, Liberal America and the Third World (Princeton, 
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 26. Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 184—86. 

24 Even with the shift in priorities, economic assistance still accounted for 60 per¬ 
cent of all U.S. aid by war’s end. Quote from FRUS, 1947, vol. 5, The Near East and 
Africa, p. 361. Walter Hermes, Survey of the Development of the Role of the U.S. Army 
Military Advisor, OCMH Study, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1965, p. 59, 
CMH; Ralph Hinrichs, “U.S. Involvement in Low Intensity Conflict Since World War 
II: Three Case Studies—Greece, Dominican Republic, and Vietnam” (Master’s thesis, 
CGSC, 1984), pp. 3-6 to 3-8; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 181, 184; Edwin Curtin, 
“American Advisory Group Aids Greece in War of Guerrillas,” Armored Cavalry 
Journal 58 (January-February 1949): 9; Ltr, Livesay to Griswold, 21 Aug 47, sub: 
Increase in Strength of the Greek Army, in 091 Greece, P&O, 1946-48, RG 319, NARA; 
Memo, Rawlins, n.d., sub: Notes on the GNA and Its Problems Prepared in Connection 
with the Visit of Commander in Chief MELF to Athens, August 1947; Msg, Athens 176 
to State, 10 Feb 48, sub: Greek Military Situation, in 868.20/2-1048, RG 59, NARA; 
Ltrs, William Draper, Jr., Actg Secy of Army, to Robert Lovett, Secy of State, 24 Dec 48, 
and Lovett to Royall, 13 Jan 49, both in 868.20/12-2448, RG 59, NARA; Memos, CSA 
for Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Situation in Greece, App to Incl B, Report on Greece 
by Combined Imperial General Staff, JCS 1704/19, 3 May 49, in 091 Greece, P&O, 
1949-50, RG 319, NARA, and American Embassy, Greece, for the Secy of State, 20 
Dec 48, sub: Visit to Greece of the Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall, 522347, 
ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. 

25 First quote from Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 188-92. Second quote from 
Estimate of the Military Situation, pp. 54-55, atch to Rpt, Chamberlin to CSA, 20 Oct 
47, sub: The Greek Situation. Harold Roberts, The Organization and Functions of the 
Joint U.S. Military Advisory Planning Group for Greece (JUSMAPG) (Student paper, 
IOAC, Infantry School, 1952-53), pp. 1-7; Monthly Historical Rpt, U.S. Army Group, 
American Mission to Greece, Sep 47, U.S. Army Section Group, Adjutant General 
Section History files, 1947-50, Joint U.S. Military Aid Group (JUSMAG), Greece, E 
155, RG 334, NARA; William McNeill, Greece: American Aid in Action, 1947—1956 
(New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1957), p. 67. 

26 Quote from Interv with James A. Van Fleet, U.S. Army Senior Officer Debriefing 
Program, U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pa., p. 26, and 
see also pp. 14, 16 (hereafter cited as Van Fleet Interv). Lawrence Wittner, American 
Intervention in Greece, 1943-1949 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 
242; Brief History, 1 January 1948 to 31 August 1949, p. 14, U.S. Army Section Group, 
Adjutant General Section History files, 1947-50, JUSMAG, Greece, E 155, RG 334, 


76 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


NARA; Robert Selton, “Communist Errors in the Anti-Bandit War,” Military Review 45 
(September 1965): 75. 

27 Van Fleet Interv, pp. 3-4, 15; Estimate of the Military Situation, p. 19, atch to Rpt, 
Chamberlin to CSA, 20 Oct 47, sub: The Greek Situation. 

:s Robert Siegrist, Victory in the Balkans (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 
1952—53), p. 6; O Ballance, Greek Civil War , pp. 173—74; Curtin, “American Advisory 
Group,” p. 13; Memos, Highlight Notes, 30 Jun 49, in 314.7, JUSMAPG, Greece, RG 
334, NARA, and JUSMAPG, 18 Dec 47, sub: Minutes of the Seventeenth Meeting of 
the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of all Three War Ministries, in 334, JUSMAG, 
Greece, E 146, RG 334, NARA; Diary, William G. Livesay, 31 Aug 47, William G. 
Livesay Papers, MHI. 

Quote from Rpt, Mil Attache, Greece, 15 Nov 47, sub: Armed Forces of Greece, 
Expansion Possibilities, 929245, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. Van Fleet Interv, pp. 3, 
17, 21; Memo, Van Fleet for Grady, 31 Dec 48, sub: General Zervas’ Opinions on the 
Current Military Situation, Incl to Despatch 149, Athens to State, 19 Feb 49, 535816, 
ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; Roberts, Organization and Functions, p. 10. 

30 Ltrs, Brig Gen Reuben E. Jenkins, Asst Dir, JUSMAPG, to Lt Gen S. Kitrilakis, 
Dep Ch, GGS (Greek General Staff), 3 Jun 49, in 322, and Col Temple G. Holland, 
Comdr, JUSMAPG Det, C Corps, to Commanding General (CG), C Corps, 4 Feb 
49, sub: Rifles for Civil Units, in 322; Memos, JUSMAPG, n.d., sub: Minutes of the 
Meeting of the Executive Committee Held February 25, 1949, in 332, and JUSMAPG 
Det, C Corps, 16 Jun 49, sub: Addendum to Monthly Report, May 1949, in 319.1. All in 
JUSMAG, Greece, E 156, RG 334, NARA. McNeill, Greece , pp. 49, 132. 

31 Quotes from Rpt, Livesay to Griswold, 24 Jun 47, sub: Requests by the GNA 
and Gendarmerie for Authorization and Funds To Increase Their Military Strength 
and Certain Allied Activities, in 868.20/8-147, RG 59, NARA; Livesay Diary, 19 Jun 
47; Needham, Paramilitary Forces in Greece, p. 29; Memo, U.S. Army Group Greece 
(USAGG), 1 Nov 47, sub: Notes of Supreme National Defense Council Meeting, Held 
at 1800 Hours, 31 Oct 1947, 334, JUSMAG, Greece, E 146, RG 334, NARA; Rpt, 
Chamberlin to CSA, 20 Oct 47, sub: The Greek Situation, 2:8, 10. 

32 Memo, Highlight Notes, 30 Jun 49; Brief History, 1 January 1948 to 31 August 
1949, pp. 12-13. Needham, Paramilitary Forces in Greece, pp. 29-31; Roberts, 
Organization and Functions, pp. 11-12. 

33 By 1949 refugee relief absorbed 22 percent of the Greek budget and a high percent¬ 
age of American economic aid as well. O’Ballance, Greek Civil War , pp. 15, 136, 150, 
163, 167-68; McNeill, Greece , pp. 40, 49, 131-32; “The Greek Guerrillas—How They 
Operate,” p. 28; Wittner, American Intervention , pp. 137-39. 

34 Quote from Wittner, American Intervention , p. 136, and see also pp. 138, 143, 
147—49. Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 192-95; FRUS, 1947 , 5:388 n, 402-03. 

35 First quote from Van Fleet Interv, p. 33, and see also pp. 26-27, 32, 34, 49-52. 
Second quote from Estimate of the Military Situation, p. 3, atch to Rpt, Chamberlin 
to CSA, 20 Oct 47, sub: The Greek Situation. FRUS, 1947, 5:403; O’Ballance, Greek 
Civil War, pp. 150, 167-68, 179, 214; Dimitrios Kousoulas, “The Guerrilla War the 
Communists Lost,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 89 (May 1963): 70; Charles 
Shrader, The Withered Vine: Logistics and the Communist Insurgency in Greece, 1945- 
1949 (Westport, Conn.: Frederick A. Praeger, 1999), pp. 124-27. 

36 Memo, Highlight Notes, 30 Jun 49; JUSMAG, Greece, History, 25 March 1949 
to 30 June 1950, p. 58; Monthly Historical Rpt, U.S. Army Group American Mission to 


77 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Greece, Oct 47, p. 4; Memo, JUSMAPG, n.d., sub: Minutes of Conference Held in the 
JUSMAPG Conference Room, 3 PM., 11 Jan 49. All in JUSMAG, Greece, 1947—48, 
RG 334, NARA. Speech, Livesay to Advisers, 16 Jan 48, pp. 1-4, Livesay Papers, MHI; 
Memo, Van Fleet for Grady, 31 Dec 48, sub: General Zervas’ Opinions, Incl to Des 
149, Athens to State, 19 Feb 49; Van Fleet Interv, p. 44; Greene, The Guerrilla , pp. 82, 
88; Guenther Rothenberg, Guerrilla Warfare and Counterinsurgent Efforts in Greece, 
1941-1949, in Historical Evaluation and Research Organization (HERO), Isolating the 
Guerrilla (Washington, D.C.: HERO, 1966), p. 209. 

37 For British views, see Memo, Rawlins, British Military Mission, Greece, n.d., 
sub: Notes on the GNA and Its Problems Prepared in Connection with the Visit of 
Commander in Chief MELF to Athens, August 1947; Rpt, Mil Attache, Greece, 5 Nov 
47, sub: Army Commander’s Conference, Volos, 17-18 October 1947, 414357, ID, G-2, 
RG 319, NARA. 

38 Rpt, JUSMAPG, 1 Oct 48, sub: Estimate of the Current Military Situation in 
Greece, with 2 ans.: A, Rpt, JUSMAPG, 1 Oct 48, sub: Greek Army Operations, 
1948, and B, Rpt, British Military Mission, n.d., sub: Estimate of the Bandit War in 
Greece and of the Steps Required To Bring It to a Successful Conclusion as Quickly 
as Possible; Rpt, Van Fleet to Dir, P&O, U.S. Army General Staff, 31 Mar 48; Rpt, 
JUSMAPG, 25 Mar 48, Operations Report 6, 11-19 Mar 48, pp. 9-12. All in 091 
Greece, P&O, 1946-48, RG 319, NARA. Roberts, Organization and Functions, pp. 
13-14; Rpt, Mil Attache, Greece, 15 Nov 47, sub: Armed Forces of Greece, Expansion 
Possibilities; Papagos, “Guerrilla Warfare,” p. 226; O’Ballance, Greek Civil War , pp. 
170-73. 

Anastase Balcos, “Guerrilla Warfare,” Military Review 38 (March 1958): 53; 
Dimitrios Kousoulas, “The Crucial Point of a Counterguerrilla Campaign,” Infantry 53 
(January-February 1963): 18-19. For a partial exposition of Zachariades’ philosophy, 
which had Maoist tones, see Greek General Staff, Special Intelligence Pamphlet, Bandit 
Methods, Mar 49, Incl to Rpt, Mil Attache, Greece, 23 May 49, sub: Guerrilla Tactical 
Methods. 

40 O’Ballance, Greek Civil War, pp. 179, 200; Selton, “Communist Errors,” pp. 
72-75. 

41 Greene, The Guerrilla, pp. 97-98; Shrader, Withered Vine , pp. 253-63. 

42 First quote from Kousoulas, “Guerrilla War the Communists Lost,” p. 69. Second 
quote from Memo, Greek General Staff for A, B Corps, et al., 9 May 49, in 091 Greece, 
P&O 1949-50, RG 319, NARA. Memo, Brig Gen T. Sfetsios for GGS/A3, 9 May 
49, sub: Distribution of 2,000 Rifles, in 322, JUSMAPG, Greece, RG 334, NARA; 
Papagos, “Guerrilla Warfare,” pp. 228-29; Roberts, Organization and Functions, p. 15; 
O’Ballance, Greek Civil War, pp. 156, 161. 

43 Quote from JUSMAG, Greece, History, 25 March 1949 to 30 June 1950, p. 85, and 
see also pp. 103, 108-09. Memo, Highlight Notes, 30 Jun 49; Monthly Rpts, JUSMAPG 
B Corps Detachment, 1 Jun, 1 Jul, and 1 Aug 49, in 319.1, JUSMAPG, Greece, E 
155, RG 334, NARA; Minutes of Conference Held 9 May 1949 Between JUSMAPG, 
BMM(G), RAF Delegation, BMM(G), and BPPM, n.d., in 091 Greece, P&O, 1949-50, 
RG 319, NARA. 

44 For assessments of the war, see O’Ballance, Greek Civil War, pp. 175, 192, 210-16; 
Wainhouse, “Guerrilla War in Greece,” p. 25; Kousoulas, “Crucial Point,” pp. 19-20; 
E. Zacharakis, “Lessons Learned in the Anti-Guerrilla War in Greece, 1946-1949,” 
General Military Review (July 1960): 186-93. 


78 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


45 Balcos, “Guerrilla Warfare,” pp. 53-54; Papagos, “Guerrilla Warfare,” pp. 229-30; 
FRUS, 1949 , 6:273; McNeill, Greece, pp. 40, 45, 50-51, 63; Lomperis, People’s War 
to People’s Rule, p. 167; Packenham, Liberal America, pp. 31-32; Shafer, Deadly 
Paradigms, pp. 166, 189-96, 203-04; Wittner , American Intervention, pp. 189-91. 

Huk was shorthand for Hukbo Ng Bayan Laban Sa Hapon, which translates as 
“People’s Army to Fight Against Japan.” William Moore, “The Hukbalahap Insurgency, 
1948-1954: An Analysis of the Roles, Missions, and Doctrine of the Philippine Military 
Forces” (Student thesis, AWC, 1971), p. 2; Asprey, War in the Shadows, 2:818; Benedict 
Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines (Berkeley: 
University of California Press, 1977), pp. 250-54; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 206- 
11; Eduardo Lachica, The Huks: Philippine Agrarian Society in Revolt (Washington, 
D.C.: Frederick A. Praeger, 1971), pp. 41^47. 

4 Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, p. 26; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 211-12; 
Kerkvliet, Huk Rebellion, p. 267; Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. 
Guerrilla Warfare, Counter-insurgency, and Counter-terrorism, 1940-1990 (New York: 
Pantheon Books, 1992), pp. 96-98; Dana Dillon, “Comparative Counter-Insurgency 
Strategies in the Philippines,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 6 (Winter 1995): 283-84; 
Richard Leighton et al., The Huk Rebellion: A Case Study in the Social Dynamics of 
Insurrection (Washington, D.C.: Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1964), pp. 
28-29. 

4S Napoleon Valeriano and Charles Bohannan, Counter-Guerrilla Operations: 
The Philippine Experience (Washington, D.C.: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962), pp. 
160-62; Alvin Scaff, The Philippine Answer to Communism (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford 
University Press, 1955), p. 124; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, pp. 120-22; 
Charles Bohannan, The Communist Insurgency in the Philippines: The Hukbalahap, 
1942-1955, in HERO, Isolating the Guerrilla, pp. 137-38, 142; Mao, Selected Military 
Writings, p. 410; Russell Volckmann, We Remained (New York: W. W. Norton, 1954), 
pp. 108-09; Gene Hanrahan, Japanese Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, ORO- 
T-268 (Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 
1954); Dillon, “Comparative Strategies,” pp. 283-84; Leighton, Huk Rebellion, pp. 
28-29, 57-58; Lawrence Greenberg, The Hukbalahap Insurrection: A Case Study of a 
Successful Anti-Insurgency Operation in the Philippines, 1944-1946 (Washington, D.C.: 
U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1987), p. 76; Kerkvliet, Huk Rebellion, pp. 160, 
189-90, 195; Robert Ross Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency: Economic, Political, and 
Military Factors, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1963, pp. 85-86, CMH. 

49 Uldarico Baclagon, How We Fight the Communist (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry 
School, 1956-57), p. 10; Greenberg, The Hukbalahap Insurrection, p. 129; Bohannan, 
“Communist Insurgency,” p. 134. 

50 Rpts, Mil Attache, Manila, 21 Nov 51, sub: Captured Enemy Document Titled 
(Military Strategy and Tactics), 858801, and HQ, Philippine Command (PhilCom) 
(Air Force [AF]), and 13th AF, Ofc of the Dep for Intel, 14 May 51, sub: Hukbong 
Mapagpalaya Ng Bayan (HMB) Tactics, 811902. Both in ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. 
Otto Scharth, The Strategy, Training, and Tactics of the Huks in the Philippine Islands 
(Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1952-53), pp. 9-12; Fred Barton, Salient 
Operational Aspects of Paramilitary Warfare in Three Asian Areas, ORO-T-228 
(Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1953), 
pp. 204-10, 233-35. Estimates of Huk strength vary. See Charles Bohannan, 
“Antiguerrilla Operations,” Annals 341 (May 1962): 21; Tomas Tirona, “The Philippine 


79 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

Anti-Communist Campaign,” Air University Review 7 (Summer 1954): 47; Dillon, 
“Comparative Strategies,” p. 285. 

51 First quote from David Greenberg, “The United States Response to Philippine 
Insurgency” (Ph.D. diss., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 
1994), p. 100. Remaining quotes from FRUS, 1951 , vol. 6, Asia and the Pacific, p. 
1561, and see also pp. 1505-12, 1536-39, 1553-54. FRUS, 1950, vol. 6, East Asia and 
the Pacific, pp. 1435-37; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 220-22; Dillon, “Comparative 
Strategies,” p. 287; Richard Kessler, Rebellion and Repression in the Philippines (New 
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 138. 

52 Greenberg, “United States Response to Philippine Insurgency,” pp. 123, 174; 
FRUS, 1950, 6:1437, 1483, 1487, 1514-20; FRUS, 1951, 6:1495, 1500; Memo, John F. 
Melby, Chair, Joint State-Defense Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) Survey 
Mission to Southeast Asia, for FMACC, 29 Sep 50, pp. 2-3, atch to Rpt, Joint Mutual 
Defense Assistance (MDA) Survey Mission in Southeast Asia, 27 Sep 50, sub: Report 
No. 4 of the Joint MDA Survey Mission in Southeast Asia (hereafter cited as Erskine 
Rpt), in 091 Philippines, 1950-51, G-3, RG 319, NARA. 

53 Hermes, Development of the Role of the U.S. Army Military Advisor, p. 36; 
Erskine Rpt, p. 10. 

54 For evidence that JUSMAG planners were mindful of the Greek example, see 
Greenberg, “United States Response to Philippine Insurgency,” p. 126; Briefing, 
JUSMAG to U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines et ah, n.d., sub: Ground Forces: 
Organization, Disposition, Tactics, Logistics, and Recommendations to Philippine 
Government Made by JUSMAG, p. 14, atch to Rpt, JUSMAG, 29 Sep 50, sub: Weekly 
Summary of Activities, in 319.1, JUSMAG, Philippines, 1949-53, RG 334, NARA; 
Memorandum for the Record (MFR), G-3, 26 Oct 51, sub: Request by JUSMAGPHIL 
on Operational Procedures Utilized in Greece by JAMAG, in 091 Philippines, G-3 
1950-51, RG 319, NARA. 

55 John Jameson, “The Philippine Constabulary as a Counterinsurgency Force, 
1948-54” (Student thesis, AWC, 1971), pp. 17-18; Greenberg, “United States Response 
to Philippine Insurgency,” p. 117; Erskine Rpt, an. B, pp. 9-10; Rpts, JUSMAG, 18 Jan 
51, sub: Semi-Annual Appraisal of the Joint United States Military Advisory Group to 
the Republic of the Philippines, pp. 29-30, and 25 Mar 50, sub: Semi-Annual Appraisal 
of the Joint United States Military Advisory Group to the Republic of the Philippines, p. 
5. Both in 091 Philippines, G-3 Classified Correspondence, RG 319, NARA. 

56 Rpt, JUSMAG, 25 Mar 50, sub: Semi-Annual Appraisal of the Joint United 
States Military Advisory Group to the Republic of the Philippines, pp. 5-6; Hermes, 
Development of the Role of the U.S. Army Military Advisor, pp. 38-38b; Memo, Melby 
for FMACC, 29 Sep 50, p. 4, atch to Erskine Rpt. 

57 Briefing, JUSMAG to U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines et al., n.d., sub: 
Ground Forces: Organization, Disposition, Tactics, Logistics, and Recommendations to 
Philippine Government Made by JUSMAG, pp. 13-15, atch to Rpt, JUSMAG, 29 Sep 
50, sub: Weekly Summary of Activities; Jameson, “Philippine Constabulary,” pp. 20-21; 
Bohannan, “Antiguerrilla Operations,” p. 21. 

58 A battalion combat team had 1,047 men and consisted of a headquarters and head¬ 
quarters company, three infantry companies, a heavy weapons company of mortars and 
machine guns, a reconnaissance company partially outfitted with armored cars, and a 
service company. Typical attachments included an artillery battery whose crewmen often 
served as infantry, a scout dog team, an air detachment, a military intelligence team, a 


80 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


psychological warfare and civil affairs team, a medical detachment, and up to a dozen 
Scout Ranger teams. Although the formation was not entirely ideal for Philippine condi¬ 
tions, it proved to be an effective adaptation. Luis Villa-Real, “Huk Hunting,” U.S Army 
Combat Forces Journal 5 (November 1954): 32; Donald MacGrain, “Anti-Dissident 
Operations in the Philippines” (Student thesis, AWC, 1956), pp. 16-18; Rpt, JUSMAG, 
25 Mar 50, sub: Semi-Annual Appraisal of the Joint United States Military Advisory 
Group to the Republic of the Philippines, p. 5. 

For State and Defense Department support for greater American involvement 
and for JUSMAG’s opposition, see FRUS, 1950 , 6:1435-37; FRUS, 1951, 6:1534; 
Erskine Rpt, pp. 12, 16; Rpts, JUSMAG, 18 Jan 51, sub: Semi-Annual Appraisal of 
the Joint United States Military Advisory Group to the Republic of the Philippines, pp. 
45^47, and 14 Feb 52, sub: Semi-Annual Report, 1 July-31 December 1951, p. 3, 091 
Philippines, G-3, 1952, RG 319, NARA. 

60 Edward Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 
47^49; Boyd Bashore, “Dual Strategy for Limited War,” Military Review 40 (May 
1960): 57. The Scout Rangers were patterned after the U.S. Army’s Alamo Scouts, which 
during World War II had conducted small-scale reconnaissance, observation, and intel¬ 
ligence operations behind Japanese lines, as well as Philippine organizations like Force 
X and the Nenita unit. Such formations were partly inspired by techniques employed 
by U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston during the Philippine War of 1899-1902. 
Christopher Harmon, “Illustrations of ‘Learning’ in Counterinsurgency,” Comparative 
Strategy 11 (January-March 1992): 41; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, pp. 112, 
115, 119-22; Barton, Salient Operational Aspects, pp. 173-77; Rpt, JUSMAG, 18 Jan 
51, sub: Semi-Annual Appraisal of the Joint United States Military Advisory Group to 
the Republic of the Philippines, p. 49. 

61 At its height, JUSMAG numbered but sixty-four individuals and was never allowed 
to post advisers on a permanent basis with Philippine units. The United States did not 
allow its personnel to accompany Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) units on active 
operations until 1953. Rpts, JUSMAG, 26 Apr 51, sub: Weekly Summary of Activities, 
and 1 Dec 51, sub: Weekly Summary of Activities, both in 319.1, JUSMAG, Philippines, 
RG 334, NARA; Robert Ross Smith, “The Hukbalahap Insurgency,” Military Review 
45 (June 1965): 37-38; Barton, Salient Operational Aspects, pp. 59-60; Jameson, 
“Philippine Constabulary,” p. 64; Uldarico Baclagon, Lessons from the Huk Campaign 
in the Philippines (Manila: M. Colcol, 1960), pp. 66-69, 113, 180, 187; Rpt, Office 
of the Assistant Chief of Staff (OACS), G-2, 17 Jan 52, sub: Notes on Psychological 
Warfare, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, Mil Attache, Manila, 9 Jan 52, sub: Tactical 
Notes for Use by BCT and Company Commanders, 866168, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; 
Clarence Barrens, “I Promise: Magsaysay’s Unique Psyop ‘Defeats’ Huks” (Master’s 
thesis, CGSC, 1965), p. 74; Paul Linebarger, Psychological Warfare (Washington, D.C.: 
Combat Forces Press, 1954), p. 260. 

62 Valeriano and Bohannan, Counter-Guerrilla Operations, pp. 117-18, 127-29; 
MacGrain, “Anti-Dissident Operations,” pp. 25-26; McClintock, Instruments of 
Statecraft, pp. 119, 123-25. 

63 First and second quotes from Bohannan, “Antiguerrilla Operations,” p. 25. 
Fourth quote from ibid., p. 26. Third quote from Lansdale, In the Midst of Wars, p. 70. 
Dillon, “Comparative Strategies,” p. 288; Greenberg, The Hukbalahap Insurrection, 
pp. 107, 132; Iluminado Mangako, “The Constabulary and Rural Development,” 
Philippine Armed Forces Journal (March 1956): 43-45. Both Americans and 


81 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Filipinos consciously patterned certain aspects of the counterinsurgency campaign 
after techniques employed during the Philippine Insurrection. Even the Huks drew 
inspiration from that conflict, flying the old revolutionary flag. Harmon, “Illustrations 
of Learning,” p. 41; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft , p. 112; Valeriano and 
Bohannan, Counter-Guerrilla Operations, pp. 241-42; CGSC, Counterinsurgency 
Case History: The Philippines, 1946-54, RB 31-3 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. 
Army Command and General Staff College, 1965), pp. 47-48, 70-71; Kerkvliet, Huk 
Rebellion, pp. 160, 195; Robert Ginsburg, “Damn the Insurrectos!” Military Review 
44 (January 1964): 59. 

64 Briefing, JUSMAG to U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines et al., n.d., sub: 
Ground Forces: Organization, Disposition, Tactics, Logistics, and Recommendations to 
Philippine Government Made by JUSMAG, pp. 13-15, atch to Rpt, JUSMAG, 29 Sep 

50, sub: Weekly Summary of Activities; Rpt, JUSMAG, 18 Jan 51, sub: Semi-Annual 
Appraisal of the Joint United States Military Advisory Group to the Republic of the 
Philippines, pp. 28, 43; Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 32-33; Maynard Dow, 
“Counterinsurgency and Nation-Building: A Comparative Study of Post-World War II 
Antiguerrilla Resettlement Programs in Malaya, the Philippines, and South Vietnam” 
(Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1965), p. 139. 

65 Quote from Rpt, OACS, Intelligence, 24 Jan 52, sub: G-2 Evaluation, atch to 
Rpt, Army Attache, Manila, 23 Dec 51, sub: Seminar of AFP CAO’s, 863148, ID, 
G-2, RG 319, NARA; Bohannan, “Communist Insurgency,” p. 129; Rpt, JUSMAG, 
18 Jul 51, sub: Semi-Annual Report, 1 January 1951 to 30 June 1951, pp. 26-27, in 
091 Philippines, 1950-51, G-3, RG 319, NARA; Tirona, “Philippine Anti-Communist 
Campaign,” p. 50; Andrew Molnar, Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds 
in Insurgencies, DA Pam 550-104 (Washington, D.C.: Special Operations Research 
Office, American University, 1966), p. 213; Rpt, JUSMAG, 14 Feb 52, sub: Semi- 
Annual Report, 1 July-31 December 1951, p. 3. 

66 First quote from Erskine Rpt, p. 2. Second quote from Smith, Hukbalahap 
Insurgency, p. 115. Even the Huks attributed their defeat to American intervention. 
Lomperis, People’s War to People’s Rule, pp. 190-91; Kerkvliet, Huk Rebellion, p. 243; 
McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, pp. 111-12. 

Rpt, JUSMAG, 18 Jan 51, sub: Semi-Annual Appraisal of the Joint United States 
Military Advisory Group to the Republic of the Philippines, p. 26; Msg, Manila 1533 
to State, 25 Apr 51, sub: MDAP Monthly General Report for the Period Ending March 
31, 1951, in 091 Philippines, G-3, 1950-51, RG 319, NARA; Rpt, JUSMAG, 18 Jul 

51, sub: Semi-Annual Report, 1 January 1951 to 30 June 1951, pp. 20-21, 27-29; Rpt, 
JUSMAG, 14 Feb 52, sub: Semi-Annual Report, 1 July-31 December 1951, p. 3; Rpt, 
OACS, G-2, 28 Mar 52, sub: AFP—1952 Anti-Huk Campaign, 873401, ID, G-2, RG 
319, NARA; MacGrain, “Anti-Dissident Operations,” pp. 19-20, 29. 

Quote from CGSC, Counterinsurgency Case History: The Philippines, p. 140, 
and see also pp. 132, 145^16. FRUS, 1952-54, vol. 12, East Asia and the Pacific, pp. 
492-94, 497-501; Dillon, “Comparative Strategies,” p. 295; Kerkvliet, Huk Rebellion, 
pp. 237-39, 268; Douglas Blaufarb and George Tanham, Who Will Win? (New York: 
Crane Russak, 1989), pp. 115-16; Dow, “Counterinsurgency and Nation-Building,” pp. 
100, 110-11, 137; Edward Lansdale, “Civic Action in the Military, Southeast Asia,” in 
CGSC, Internal Defense Operations: A Case History, the Philippines, 1946-54, RB 
31-3 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1967), 

p. 22. 


82 


The Counterinsurgency Advisory Experience, 1945-1955 


Quote from Bohannan, “Antiguerrilla Operations,” p. 20, and see also pp. 27-29. 
In their popular iecounting ot the insurgency, AFP Col. Napoleon Valeriano and 
JUSMAG intelligence and guerrilla warfare expert Capt. (later Lt. Col.) Charles T. R. 
Bohannan admitted that propaganda and modest initiatives, not major reforms, had 
won the war. They considered most proposals tor major socioeconomic reforms to 
have been misguided and impractical, the product of American civilian officials who 
were out of touch with Philippine realities. Valeriano and Bohannan, Counter-Guerrilla 
Operations , pp. 75-76, 225; Bohannan, “Communist Insurgency,” p. 141; Shafer, 
Deadly Paradigms, pp. 221, 224-25; Smith, Hukbalahap Insurgency, pp. 122-24; 
Jameson, “Philippine Constabulary,” pp. 48, 64; Greenberg, “United States Response 
to Philippine Insurgency, p. 107; Greenberg, The Hukbalahap Insurrection, p. 130; 
FRUS, 1951, 6:1510, 1549; Scaff, Philippine Answer to Communism, pp. 123-24, 135; 
Kerkvliet, Huh Rebellion, pp. 236-40. 

70 Asprey, War in the Shadows, 2:480-88. 

Charles MacDonald, An Outline History of U.S. Policy Toward Vietnam, U.S. 
Army Center of Military History, 1978, pp. 3-7, CMH; Ronald Spector, Advice and 
Support: The Early Years, 1941-1960, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, 
D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983), pp. 97-104. 

Edgar O’Ballance, The Indo-China War, 1945—1954 (London: Faber and Faber, 
1964), pp. 104-28; Spector, Early Years, p. 124. 

73 O’Ballance, Indo-China War, p. 195; Bernard Fall, “Indochina: The Last Year of the 
War, Communist Organization and Tactics,” Military Review 36 (October 1956): 1. 

74 O’Ballance, Indo-China War, pp. 140-51; Asprey, War in the Shadows, 2:502, 513, 
576-77. 

7 ' MacDonald, Outline History, p. 11; Bernard Fall, “Indochina, The Last Year of the 
War, The Navarre Plan,” Military Review’ 36 (December 1956): 48-50; Spector, Early 
Years, p. 181. 

6 Fall, “Navarre Plan,” pp. 52-55; Fall, “Communist Organization,” pp. 1-2. 

77 MacDonald, Outline History, pp. 13-14. 

75 Disenchantment with the way the French were conducting the war eventually led 
the United States to insist that it have the opportunity to examine and comment on 
French plans before approving any additional funding. This demand led to the dispatch 
of a special military envoy, Lt. Gen. John W. O’Daniel, to Indochina in 1953. O’Daniel 
consulted closely with Navarre, and his endorsement of the Navarre plan paved the 
way for the special aid appropriation that followed. However, the Navarre plan was less 
a detailed blueprint than a short and rather vague list of goals and guiding principles. 
Efforts in 1953-1954 to post American observers with some French headquarters 
elements were too limited and came too late in the conflict to affect its outcome. 
MacDonald, Outline History, pp. 8-10; United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967: 
Study Prepared by Department of Defense, 12 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government 
Printing Office, 1971), bk. 1, eh. IVA.2, pp. 11, 15; Spector, Early Years, pp. 127, 185; 
James Arnold, The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military, and America’s Intervention 
in Vietnam (New York: William Morrow, 1991), pp. 118-22; FRUS, 1952-54, vol. 13, 
Indochina, pp. 744-47; Annex D (Navarre Concept), p. 1, atch to Plan, Army G-3, 24 
Mar 54, sub: Outline Plan To Achieve a Military Victory in Indochina, Historians files, 
CMH. 

79 Spector, Early Years, pp. 99, 102, 114, 128, 162-65, 195, 221-22; Arnold, First 
Domino, pp. 83, 98; FRUS, 1952-54, 13:745, 1017-18, 1110, 1114-15; Chester Cooper, 


83 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


The American Experience with Pacification in Vietnam, R-185, 3 vols., Institute for 
Defense Analyses, Mar 72, 3:113, MHI; Lamar Prosser, “The Bloody Lessons of 
Indochina,” U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal 5 (June 1955): 30. 

N " O’Ballance, Indo-China War , pp. 251-56; “Reasons for the French Failure in 
Indochina,” U.S. Army Pacific Intelligence Bulletin (September 1959); Fall, “Navarre 
Plan,” pp. 55-56; Arnold, First Domino , p. 386; William Dodds, “Anti-Guerrilla 
Warfare” (Student thesis, AWC, 1955), pp. 9-10; Ellen Hammer, The Struggle for 
Indochina, 1940-1955 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1966), pp. 315- 
16. 


84 



The Korean Civil War 

1945-1954 


France’s defeat in Indochina left the United States with an even 
win to loss ratio in its post-World War II counterinsurgency advisory 
endeavors, as victories in Greece and the Philippines were offset by a 
partial failure in Indochina and a crushing defeat in China. There was, 
however, one more conflict to enter into the balance sheet—a bloody 
conflagration that racked the Korean Peninsula for nearly a decade. 
The Korean Civil War differed from the other irregular conflicts of 
the post-World War II decade in that it was the only one in which the 
United States moved beyond an advisory role to become a full-fledged 
participant in the hostilities. 

Occupation and Advice, 1945-1950 

Unlike China, Greece, and the Philippines, Korea had suffered rela¬ 
tively little material damage during World War II, but it did not escape the 
war’s effects. A Japanese colony, Korea bore the weight of the imperial 
war effort, providing millions of people for overseas service in Japanese 
military and economic enterprises, while back home the population 
groaned under the weight of wartime inflation, exploitative landlords, 
repressive police, and oppressive tax and rice collection systems. Japan’s 
defeat unleashed a torrent of political activity as a host of groups com¬ 
peted to recast the country to their own liking. Communist and leftist 
organizations were particularly popular in the countryside, where their 
promises of land reform resonated among poor tenant farmers. Onto this 
revolutionary situation the Allied powers imposed a temporary military 


85 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


occupation designed to guide Korea through the transition from Japanese 
colony to an independent nation. Divided geographically between north¬ 
ern (Soviet) and southern (U.S.) zones, each of the occupation regimes 
cultivated those groups that appealed to their particular ideological inter¬ 
ests and repressed those that did not. {Map 6) 

The commander of U.S. forces in Korea, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, 
followed the same creed of good government, free market economics, 
and measured reform that characterized the postwar military govern¬ 
ments in Germany and Japan. Unfortunately, his attempts at reforming 
the Korean economic system produced unintended and often disrup¬ 
tive consequences, and in the fall of 1946 serious rioting erupted over 
Hodge’s impolitic decision to continue the hated Japanese rice collec¬ 
tion and taxation system. Tensions continued to simmer through 1947 
and into 1948, when Cold War pressures led to the final abandonment 
of the original goal of establishing a single Korean state. In its stead, 
two rival regimes emerged. Communist North Korea under the leader¬ 
ship of ex-guerrilla chieftain Kim II Sung, and non-Communist South 
Korea under Syngman Rhee, a long-time nationalist with close ties to 
the American Christian missionary community in Korea. Each man was 
committed to the destruction of the other and the eventual reunification 
of Korea under his own auspices. Rhee’s position, however, was tenu¬ 
ous, as the Republic of Korea (ROK) continued to experience political 
infighting, peasant unrest, and periodic outbreaks of violence. 1 

The Communist South Korean Labor Party (SKLP) provided 
the organizational nucleus for the anti-Rhee movement. It infiltrated 
government organizations, gathered intelligence, spread propaganda, 
and mobilized the population through a variety of front organizations. 
Meanwhile, in the countryside SKLP cadres, bolstered by traditional 
bandits and peasants who had tired of insensitive treatment at the hands 
of landlords and policemen, took up arms. By the time the U.S. military 
government officially turned over the reins of power to Rhee in August 
1948, Communist guerrillas already controlled several large areas of 
South Korea, most notably in the southwest, where tenant farmers 
suffered the greatest exploitation, and in the Chiri, Taebaek, and Odae 
mountain regions. Acting as “farmers by day and fighters by night,” 
SKLP guerrillas sallied forth from remote mountain bases to attack 
isolated police detachments and raid villages, alternately propagandiz¬ 
ing and terrorizing the population. 2 

By 1949 the SKLP fielded several thousand guerrillas backed 
by 10,000 party members, 600,000 active sympathizers, and up to 2 
million “fellow travelers” in affiliated front organizations. Although 
indigenous to the South, the movement was increasingly controlled 


86 



Map 6 














Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


from the North, as Kim II Sung sent cadres across the border to act 
as troop commanders, political leaders, instructors, spies, and eventu¬ 
ally as rank-and-file guerrillas as well. In 1949 North Korea formed a 
Democratic Front for the Liberation of the Fatherland to orchestrate a 
more concerted campaign of guerrilla warfare and political upheaval, 
and thereafter northern control predominated, although communica¬ 
tions difficulties and lingering regionalism impeded coordination. 3 

The Republic of Korea’s counterinsurgency effort suffered from 
a number of defects. Factionalism, cronyism, and corruption perme¬ 
ated the government, while political and economic instability were 
exacerbated by the South’s failure to redress popular grievances, as 
Rhee preferred to suppress his political rivals rather than implement 
reforms that might erode his power base. Suppression, however, was 
not easy to achieve, as Rhee’s security apparatus suffered from seri¬ 
ous structural problems. South Korea’s first security organization, the 
National Police, was poorly paid and hated, having inherited from 
the Japanese colonial police a reputation for brutality and extortion. 
Scattered across the countryside in small, fortified posts, the police 
were vulnerable to guerrilla concentrations and had difficulty quell¬ 
ing major uprisings. 4 

In 1946 the United States created the Korean Constabulary as 
a light infantry reserve to reinforce the police during internal dis¬ 
orders. Unfortunately, a fierce rivalry grew between the police and 
Constabulary that was never fully overcome and that greatly impeded 
the execution of the counterinsurgency campaign. The Constabulary 
had also been infiltrated by leftists during its formation and lacked 
cohesion until a massive purge in 1948-1949 cleansed it of suspect 
personnel. 5 

Upon gaining independence in 1948, South Korea redesignated the 
Constabulary as the ROK Army, but the name change did not result in a 
more effective force. Organized, trained, and advised by the U.S. Army 
through the auspices of the Korean Military Assistance Group (KMAG), 
both the police and army suffered from all the defects one might expect 
from hastily raised forces immediately thrown into combat. KMAG’s 
job was further complicated by the resistance some Korean officers 
exhibited toward American advice. U.S. advisers expunged from the 
South Korean Army with only the greatest difficulty certain outmoded 
methods, like the banzai charge, that its officers had learned while 
in Japanese service. In fact, the assistance group attributed the ROK 
Army’s heavy losses when fighting guerrillas in 1948-1949 to the 
refusal of some of its commanders to heed American advice, particu¬ 
larly with regard to march and camp security. 6 


88 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


In 1950 South Korea tried to relieve its regular infantry units of 
counterinsurgency duty so that they could concentrate on fixing their 
many operational, administrative, and training defects. This was done 
by creating special counterguerrilla units—National Police combat 
battalions and Army “antiguerrilla” battalions—as well as units of 
railroad police. The initiative was only partially successful, as the new 
forces were also poorly trained and equipped and lacked the numbers 
necessary to keep the guerrillas in check. Moreover, both the railroad 
police and antiguerrilla battalions were employed in largely static roles 
to protect installations and lines of communications, a fact reflected in 
the government’s eventual redesignation of the antiguerrilla battalions 
as ‘'security” battalions. Consequently, the army was never able to 
quit the counterinsurgency business, and most major counterguerrilla 
operations after 1950 continued to require large infusions of regular 
infantry units. 7 

American advice to Rhee did not differ materially from that given 
to other nations threatened by internal warfare during the Truman years. 
Politically, the United States pushed for the establishment of more open, 
democratic institutions, honest and effective administration, economic 
development, and social reform, most notably in the areas of land ten¬ 
ancy and labor issues. These had been the goals, imperfectly achieved, 
of the military government, and KMAG advisers continued such coun¬ 
sel after South Korea achieved its independence. Thus when the first 
significant wave of sustained guerrilla warfare erupted in South Korea 
on the island of Cheju-do in 1948, the Army’s local representative, Col. 
Rothwell H. Brown, suggested that economic development, honest and 
efficient governmental administration, an improved public relations 
program, and better behavior on the part of the police would go far 
toward resolving the situation. Three years later, a KMAG document 
echoed these sentiments, noting that “Communist forces will find it 
hard to grow or even exist among people who are well fed, well housed, 
well clothed and gainfully employed. On the other hand, it is useless to 
believe in the ultimate success of any military operation if conditions 
continue to foster political or economic discontent.”* 

Since political and economic reforms were outside its purview, the 
assistance group concentrated its “political” efforts on improving the 
conduct of ROK security forces. Government forces routinely used tor¬ 
ture to extract confessions, executed suspects without trial, appropriat¬ 
ed civilian property to supplement their meager wages, and on occasion 
massacred villagers in retaliation for guerrilla ambushes. 4 Americans 
attributed Korean brutality to cultural factors and to Japanese prec¬ 
edent. Torture, terror, and abuse had been standard practices throughout 


89 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A U.S. Army adviser helps a Korean Constabulary officer plan 
a counterguerrilla operation on Cheju-do. 


the Japanese empire, and a significant proportion of the leadership of 
the new Korean security forces had served in Japanese forces during 
World War II. KMAG chief Brig. Gen. William L. Roberts considered 
the Korean soldier’s “desire to kick civilians around like his Jap prede¬ 
cessors used to do, his sadistic tendencies” to be his chief weakness, 
and he cautioned new advisers that “one of your greatest problems will 
come from Korean Army personnel having the wrong attitude toward 
civilians.” Roberts directed his subordinates to stress impartial enforce¬ 
ment of the law and humane behavior, instructing them to report all 
incidents of abuse and to press for the punishment of offending person¬ 
nel. The assistance group also drafted regulations for the South Korean 
Army that banned foraging and compulsory civilian labor. 10 

By 1949 American pressure for reform had begun to bear fruit. On 
Cheju-do the government changed tactics, initiating a new strategy of 
“half force, half administration,” under which it called “a halt to the 
indiscriminate slaying of residents of the hill country villages” while 
providing additional relief supplies. Adopting Chiang Kai-shek’s for¬ 
mulation of counterinsurgency as seven parts political and three parts 
military, Rhee offered amnesty to Communist activists and endeavored 
to mobilize public support through propaganda and political action. The 
government enacted a land reform program and created the National 
Repentance Alliance, an organization of ex-subversives who in return 
for their confessions and denunciation of communism were absolved 


90 




The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


of their sins and given help finding jobs. The organization, which had 
300,000 members, not only rehabilitated former opponents, but served 
as an effective propaganda, intelligence, and population-control mecha¬ 
nism. In time the government placed some of the penitents into special 
aimed propaganda teams, called Listen to Me units, which proved 
effective in both propaganda and combat roles." 

Local officials supplemented these initiatives with programs of 
their own. In South Cholla, the provincial government reopened schools 
and imposed a program ol political reeducation in guerrilla-dominated 
districts. It reinforced this effort by forming a special pacification 
unit composed of local dignitaries and army musicians that attempted 
alternately to coax and serenade the guerrillas into surrendering. 
Meanwhile, in neighboring South Kyongsang the provincial governor 
established a rural education program in which teams of officials and 
youths armed with pamphlets, loudspeakers, and films praised the gov¬ 
ernment and vilified the Communists. Such actions received a boost 
from Rhees growing concern over allegations of human rights abuses, 
a concern that led him occasionally to punish individuals for commit¬ 
ting or tolerating atrocities. By January 1950 the assistance group was 
able to report that whereas “the Army and police were once despised 
just as much as the rebels for their looting by the villagers, this feeling 
has been corrected for the most part and an encouraging amount of 
cooperation is being experienced between the villagers and the protec¬ 
tive forces. This program of placating the villagers has been successful 
to the point where villagers are reporting to the Army and police loca¬ 
tions of guerrilla food caches and movements.” 12 {Map 7) 

While KMAG supported efforts to integrate political, economic, 
and psychological initiatives into a combined politico-military cam¬ 
paign, it naturally concentrated most of its efforts on the military 
aspects of the insurgency. Most of the information imparted to the 
South Koreans by their American advisers concerned conventional sub¬ 
jects such as organization, administration, logistics, and training. These 
were subjects essential to the effectiveness of any military organization, 
and while naturally patterned on U.S. Army concepts, the assistance 
group was aware that it had to take Korean conditions into account. 
From the start, KMAG molded the armed forces of South Korea for 
internal security duties. It outfitted them with light weapons and equip¬ 
ment rather than the heavier ordnance required for conventional opera¬ 
tions, while its troop training curriculum focused almost exclusively on 
marksmanship, patrolling, march and camp security, and small-unit tac¬ 
tics-fundamentals that were equally applicable to both conventional 
and unconventional situations. The assistance group issued guidelines 


91 




Map 7 















The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


for antiguerrilla training, wrote campaign plans, and helped execute 
those plans through advisers posted to infantry regiments and major 
police and military commands. It thus exercised a great amount of 
influence over the conduct of the counterguerrilla campaign. 13 

Trial and error played a significant part in KM AG’s efforts, as few 
advisers had any counterguerrilla experience. American advice was 
neither the only, nor necessarily the most important, influence on the 
conduct of counterguerrilla warfare in Korea because the Koreans also 
looked to Asian examples. Several high-ranking South Korean officers 
had served in either the Chinese Nationalist or the Japanese armed 
forces during the 1930s and 1940s, where they learned how these two 
armies conducted counterguerrilla operations. Among the techniques 
they had observed were active police and counterintelligence measures 
to unearth the Communist underground, the pao chia system, reprisals, 
the forcible relocation of rural dwellers into fortified villages in order 
to separate them from the guerrillas, the creation of village self-defense 
and militia groups, and even the development of political, economic, 
and propaganda programs to win popular support. Encirclement, some¬ 
times on a massive scale, had been a standard Sino-Japanese technique, 
while the Japanese had particularly favored winter operations, when 
leafless trees and harsh weather complicated the guerrillas’ ability to 
move, hide, and survive relative to their more logistically endowed 
opponents. Finally, in guerrilla base areas that were either too strong 
or remote to be controlled, the Japanese had employed a strategy of 
“Three All”—take all, burn all, kill all—in which they laid waste to the 
countryside, both to deny the guerrillas human and material resources 
and to break the people’s will to resist. Ultimately, the South Koreans 
would employ all of these Sino-Japanese techniques, blending them 
with American organizational and tactical methods to create an increas¬ 
ingly effective—if sometimes harsh—counterinsurgency campaign. 14 

The counterguerrilla war in South Korea represented a multilayered 
effort. At the rice roots level, police detachments housed in medieval- 
style forts guarded villages and conducted patrols. They were assisted 
by a variety of paramilitary organizations. These groups had first 
emerged in 1945 as the private armies of rival political factions and 
personalities. In time Rliee asserted control over these organizations, 
occasionally integrating their personnel into police and military units 
and supplementing their numbers by drafting villagers into militia and 
“voluntary police” organizations. Undisciplined and prone to com¬ 
mitting atrocities, the paramilitaries were invaluable for waging street 
battles and controlling the behavior of the civilian population. Together 
with the police, they gave Rhee the means for enforcing a variety of 


93 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


population-control measures, including the pogap , South Korea’s ver¬ 
sion of the pao chia system. Granted sweeping powers by the legisla¬ 
ture to arrest and detain suspected Communists, the police and para¬ 
militaries were Rhee’s primary instrument for “ruthlessly stamping out 
the communist party organization and guerrilla resistance, employing 
whatever methods were considered necessary.” By the end of 1949 the 
government had arrested approximately 30,000 suspected subversives, 
adopting in time the Greek custom of conducting mass arrests prior to 
launching a counterguerrilla offensive to disrupt the enemy’s command, 
intelligence, and supply systems. 1 ' 

U.S. Army advisers and Counter Intelligence Corps personnel took 
an active part in the counterinfrastructure campaign, both by helping 
establish indigenous intelligence systems and by participating in the 
interrogation of Communist suspects. During the Cheju-do rebellion 
of 1948, Army advisers created a “central intelligence agency” to 
collect, coordinate, analyze, and disseminate all insurgency-related 
information from police, military, and civilian sources. This system 
was so successful that the assistance group directed that similar enti¬ 
ties be established in every South Korean division and counterguer¬ 
rilla command. Meanwhile, U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps agent 
Lt. Tero Miyagishima formed a network of civilian informers in the 
Chiri-San guerrilla base area that, while failing to penetrate the guer¬ 
rilla bands, succeeded in gathering useful information from area vil¬ 
lages. Eventually, the South Koreans developed their own spy networks 
that, together with the police and paramilitaries, helped break the 
Communists’ underground organization. 16 

Despite their value in controlling the population and attacking 
the Communist infrastructure, the local police and paramilitaries 
lacked the training, discipline, support structure, and morale needed 
to take the offensive against the guerrillas. Indeed, their dispersed 
deployment made them vulnerable to annihilation by superior guer¬ 
rilla concentrations. Relief for beleaguered garrisons and impetus 
for offensive sweeps came from the second tier in the government’s 
security apparatus—mobile police combat battalions, Army security 
battalions, combat youth regiments, and regular infantry formations 
detailed for that purpose. These forces conducted patrols and sent 
columns into the hills to hunt the guerrillas. Cordon and sweeps, in 
which security forces surrounded a village, searched it, and inter¬ 
rogated its inhabitants, were common. Manpower shortages and 
logistical difficulties, however, often reduced the effectiveness of 
such operations, most of which lasted no more than three days. 
Consequently, the government found that it had to resort to a third 


94 



The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 



A U.S. Army adviser (right) to the Korean National Police helps 

display captured guerrilla flags. 


layer of effort—large-scale drives spearheaded by Army regulars—to 
disperse large guerrilla concentrations. 17 

ROK Army offensives typically lasted up to several months and 
involved tens of thousands of soldiers, policemen, and paramilitar¬ 
ies. They usually took the form of an initial encirclement followed by 
either a linear sweep or a concentric advance. Army units conducted 
what contemporary American documents referred to as “extensive 
search and destroy” operations to break up major guerrilla units, while 
police and paramilitary formations lent support and formed cordons 
to prevent escape. Once the major sweep had been completed, police 
and army units would break down into smaller units to exert “constant 
pressure” on the remaining insurgents. The regulars would then depart, 
leaving the local police and paramilitaries to consolidate the gains 
and prevent a guerrilla resurgence. Like the Japanese and KM AG’s 
counterparts in Greece, KMAG advisers also recognized the wisdom 
of undertaking operations at a time when seasonal conditions rendered 
the irregulars most vulnerable, and consequently the assistance group 
made winter campaigning a staple of the counterguerrilla war, crafting 
major offensives for every winter between 1949 and 1955. IN 

Large-scale encirclements were no panacea to the guerrilla prob¬ 
lem. They required large numbers of troops and had to be executed 
with speed and stealth, lest the guerrillas escape before the trap could 
be sealed. All too often, these criteria were unmet. Coordinating 


95 










Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Korean National Policemen inspect captured guerrilla weapons. 


the movements of police, military, and paramilitary formations over 
considerable distances in mountainous terrain with inaccurate maps, 
inadequate communications equipment, and meager intelligence was 
exceedingly difficult. All of these problems were magnified in winter, 
when cold temperatures inflicted great hardships on the troops. Even 
under the best conditions, rooting out the guerrillas in their mountain 
lairs was, recalled one U.S. adviser, “an almost impossible task. The 
mountains were thickly wooded with trees and underbrush, precipitous 
and extremely rocky and rough in nature, which not only provided 
excellent cover for the guerrilla groups, but confined troop movement 
to single trails and made ambushing a constant threat.” 14 

These handicaps notwithstanding, large operations, such as the Winter 
Punitive Operation of 1949-1950, Operation Ratkiller (December 
1951-March 1952), and Operation Mongoose (July-August 1952)—all 
of which employed the equivalent of two or more divisions—could be 
effective. When carefully conceived and executed, operations like these 
could inflict serious losses on the enemy, killing and capturing many 
guerrillas, destroying their food and shelter, and imposing hardships that 
led some guerrillas and their civilian supporters to defect. Moreover, by 
compelling the guerrillas to break down into smaller units, the govern¬ 
ment not only gained the initiative, but created circumstances under 
which it too could operate in smaller formations. Although the South 
Koreans and their U.S. advisers tended to adhere to large-scale operations 
beyond the point of diminishing returns, government forces nevertheless 


96 




The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


did break down into smaller units to harass the irregulars, furthering their 
disintegration until the guerrillas, like their Huk contemporaries, were 
little more than small bands of fugitives. 20 

While encirclement operations and infantry tactics were the 
mainstays ol the shooting war, concentration and devastation were the 
primary methods by which the government drained the “sea” of the 
human and material “nutrients” the guerrilla “fish” needed to survive. 
Beginning in 1948 with the first major counterguerrilla offensive of 
the insurgency, the South Korean government embraced a strategy of 
removing civilians from guerrilla-controlled areas. The government 
placed the evacuees in refugee camps and fortified towns—known 
variously as “collective villages” and “assembly villages”—where 
police and militiamen protected them from subversive influences. The 
security forces then put to the torch everything that could be of use to 
the guerrillas—buildings, villages, and crops. Anyone remaining in 
these areas was considered suspect and liable to arrest and detention if 
not outright death. By 1949 South Korea had relocated approximately 
100,000 people from guerrilla-infested Cheju-do, evacuating over half 
the island’s villages and destroying nearly 40,000 houses, though guer¬ 
rilla raids accounted for some of this destruction. While harsh, this 
policy succeeded in breaking the back of the rebellion, for it increased 
the guerrillas’ vulnerability to famine and inclement weather, under¬ 
mined the willingness of both the guerrillas and the civilian population 
to continue their resistance, and materially weakened the irregulars by 
cutting them off from the population upon which they depended for 
intelligence, recruits, and supplies. 21 

Success on Cheju-do led to imitation elsewhere. KMAG plans for 
the Winter Punitive Operation of 1949-1950, the first major counter¬ 
guerrilla offensive on the mainland called for the relocation of over 
100,000 civilians, followed by the confiscation of all food and the 
destruction of all villages in several guerrilla base areas. Such activities 
were not without cost, however. As in Greece they disrupted agricultur¬ 
al production and created huge numbers of destitute refugees. For some 
the experience became a catalyst for joining the rebellion, while others 
sank into a sullen apathy. Caught between callous government officials 
by day and unforgiving guerrillas at night, many people initially decid¬ 
ed that placating the guerrillas was their best chance for survival and 
refused to cooperate with authorities The government’s occasional use 
of devastation and other severe measures to retaliate against guerrilla 
acts further discredited it in the eyes of the people. Yet the detrimental 
effects of government-imposed hardships and abuse were not always 
clear-cut. This was partially because guerrilla excesses also alienated 


97 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


people and partly because the increasingly war-weary population tend¬ 
ed to support whoever seemed to have the upper hand. By improving 
the population’s security against guerrilla retaliation through increased 
military activity, strict population- and resources-control measures, and 
the establishment of defended villages, the government created condi¬ 
tions that enabled the people not only to withhold their support from the 
irregulars, but to aid the government. Thus, while the government paid 
a high price for its heavy-handed policies, that price did not prove to 
be unbearable, and ultimately population relocation, protected villages, 
and devastation were the primary means by which the government cut 
the guerrillas off from the population. 22 

South Korean Counterguerrilla Operations 
in an Expanded War, 1950-1954 

By early 1950 the South Korean government had gained the upper 
hand in its battle against internal dissidents. Through mass arrests, 
combat operations, and amnesties, Seoul had dealt the labor party 
a severe blow, and while discontent remained widespread, it was 
fragmented and disorganized. Yet Rhee’s success had come dearly in 
terms of lives, resources, and military readiness. The counterguerrilla 
campaign tied down a third of the ROK Army, thereby weakening the 
government’s ability to protect itself against external aggression and 
exacerbating the military’s logistical and organizational weaknesses. 
The army’s administrative systems were overburdened, its officers 
uneducated, and its troops poorly trained. Indeed, by the end of 1949 
less than half of the South Korean Army had completed company-level 
training, and KMAG advisers openly complained of the army’s poor 
performance. Oriented toward internal warfare, the ROK Army was 
clearly unprepared for waging a conventional war. 23 

These points were not lost on Kim II Sung. Having failed to over¬ 
throw the southern government through subversive means, in June 1950 
he initiated a new chapter in the Korean Civil War by launching a major 
conventional invasion of the South. Backed by tanks and heavy artil¬ 
lery, the northerners overran most of the country in a matter of weeks. 
Only the southeastern corner of the Korean Peninsula around Pusan 
managed to escape submersion in the Communist tide, thanks to the 
intervention of United Nations (UN) military forces spearheaded by the 
Eighth U.S. Army in Korea (EUSAK). 

The North Korean Peoples Army was a formidable foe. Some 
of its members had fought with Mao during World War II and the 
subsequent civil war in China. Others had served in Russian partisan 


98 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


and regular units during the war. 

All received training in guerrilla- 
style tactics according to precepts 
laid down in Russian and Chinese 
manuals. Like their mentors, the 
North Koreans employed partisan 
warfare as an integral adjunct to 
conventional operations. Armed 
and equipped as light infantry 
and often disguised as civilians, 

North Korean troops infiltrated 
allied lines to disrupt UN rear 
areas, laying ambushes, creating 
roadblocks, destroying lines of 
communications, and attacking 
command and support installa¬ 
tions. Many of these operations 
were conducted at night so as 
to avoid UN air attacks while 
exploiting allied weaknesses in 
night fighting. Espionage too was 
a Communist specialty. The Communists routinely employed women 
and children to gather information. One notable agent was “Poison 
Mary,” whose daily visits to American positions around Pusan beg¬ 
ging for food were invariably followed by mortar barrages of uncanny 
accuracy—until a search of her skirts revealed a hidden radio by which 
she had relayed target coordinates to North Korean artillerists. So dis¬ 
ruptive were these activities that one senior U.S. general declared in 
August 1950 that “the North Korean guerrillas are . . . at present the 
single greatest headache to U.S. forces.” 24 

Disorganized by the South Korean government’s counterinsurgency 
campaign and caught off guard by the rapidity of the North Korean 
advance, South Korean Communists did not play a significant role dur¬ 
ing the first few weeks of the invasion. In time, however, they became 
more active, encouraged by the apparent inevitability of a northern vic¬ 
tory. They disrupted UN rear areas, acted as guides, and gathered intel¬ 
ligence. The southern Communists also helped their northern brethren 
organize conquered territory, establishing Communist administrations 
and instituting a wave of reprisals against former officials. These 
actions proved premature, for in September 1950 the United Nations 
counterattacked by landing deep behind the front lines at Inch’on. The 
envelopment, coupled with a frontal attack at Pusan, sent the North 



A Korean soldier checks the 
identity papers of a refugee in 
an effort to prevent Communist 
infiltrators from gettmg behind 
allied lines. 


99 




Counterinsurgency' Doctrine, 1942-1976 

Korean People s Army reeling back north. The following month UN 
forces invaded North Korea, capturing most of that country before the 
Communist Chinese Peoples Liberation Army intervened and drove 
UN forces back across the inter-Korean border. The war would see-saw 
around this boundary for another two years. 2 " 

North Korea’s near conquest of South Korea in the summer ol 
1950 and the rapidity of the UN’s counteroffensive had significant 
consequences for the southern insurgency. The ebb and flow of the 
battle lines disrupted the South Korean government and created huge 
numbers of refugees. Reestablishing the government and caring for the 
refugees were difficult tasks that created conditions conducive to fur¬ 
ther internal disorder. The rapidity of the UN counteroffensive had also 
cut off large numbers of North Koreans from their homeland, swelling 
the number of enemy troops operating behind UN lines to 40,000. This 
represented a potential windfall for the insurgency, and by November 
1950, 30 percent of UN forces were tied down performing rear area 
security duty. 26 

Yet on balance, North Korea’s near victory proved disastrous for 
the insurgency. In their belief that the war had been won, many South 
Korean Communists had abandoned their covert habits in the summer of 
1950 and emerged into the light of day. When South Korean authorities 
returned on the coattails of UN forces later that year, the Communists 
were caught in the open. Some succeeded in going back underground, 
but many were apprehended. Still others chose to flee, either to North 
Korea or, failing that, to the mountains where they joined the ranks of 
the guerrillas. This had a devastating effect on the party’s village-level 
apparatus, as the southern Communists were never fully able to restore 
their infrastructure among the people, despite repeated urging from the 
North that they do so. This in turn compelled the guerrillas to take what 
they needed by force, a policy that merely exacerbated their standing 
among the population. Even the prospect of being reinforced by the 
large number of North Korean soldiers cut off by the UN counterof¬ 
fensive proved chimerical, for although some of these men continued 
to act in a partisan capacity, the majority attempted to exfiltrate back 
to North Korea. 27 

The widening war increased American influence over the conduct 
of South Korean counterinsurgency operations, as Rhee subordinated 
the ROK Army to American command and the United States deployed 
additional advisers. Several of the new U.S. personnel had had signifi¬ 
cant counterguerrilla experience prior to deploying to Korea. Foremost 
among these was General Van Fleet, who assumed control over allied 
ground forces in Korea in the spring of 1951. Fresh from his triumph 


100 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


over Communist guerrillas in Greece, Van Fleet used his experience to 
shape the counterguerrilla campaign. Other individuals of note were 
Lt. Col. John Beebe, who applied what he had learned as a military 
attache in China to his duties as the senior adviser to the Southern 
Security Command—a major counterguerrilla organization—and Col. 
William A. Dodds, a veteran ol the Greek insurgency whom Van Fleet 
purposefully appointed as the chief adviser for the largest counterguer¬ 
rilla action of the war, Operation Ratkiller. 28 

With the additional U.S. personnel came additional equipment, 
as the United States sought to bolster South Korea’s battered armed 
forces. The infusion of materiel naturally had an effect on the coun¬ 
terguerrilla war, as it allowed the South Koreans to employ more 
firepower than had been available in the past. Tanks and armored cars 
escorted convoys, artillery shelled suspect areas cordoned off by police, 
and American warplanes bombed guerrilla mountaintop strongholds. 
Still, the counterguerrilla effort remained largely an infantryman’s war, 
partly because the allies needed to concentrate the majority of their 
heavy weaponry on the conventional battlefront and partly because 
U.S. officers continued to doubt the utility of heavy equipment, given 
the nature of the guerrilla war and Korea’s rugged terrain. General Van 
Fleet was particularly skeptical in this regard. Though not eschewing 
firepower, Van Fleet recognized that fire support was highly addictive, 
especially to mediocre combat formations that tended to employ it as 
a substitute for closing with the enemy. An overreliance on artillery 
sapped military units of aggressiveness, encouraged road-bound move¬ 
ments, and produced indecisive results, as the irregulars often took a 
preliminary bombardment as a signal to withdraw out of harm’s way. 
These were the lessons Van Fleet had learned in Greece, and when he 
drafted the plans for Operation Ratkiller he deliberately ordered the 
South Koreans to leave their artillery behind, promising them a mod¬ 
est amount of tactical air support for those occasions when additional 
firepower was necessary. 2 " 

While the infusion of additional American expertise and mate¬ 
riel thus altered the guerrilla war somewhat, it did not fundamentally 
transform the conflict. Essentially, the South Koreans and their U.S. 
advisers continued to apply the same concepts and techniques after 
June 1950 as they had before that date. As had been the case before the 
North Korean invasion, the National Police continued to bear most of 
the counterinsurgency burden, as the demands of the conventional war 
were such that regular troops, other than some fairly static “security 
battalions,” were rarely available for counterguerrilla work for more 
than a few months at a time. Moreover, when ROK Army units were 


101 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


assigned to counterguerrilla operations, the commitment was usually 
on a rotating basis during which the units were also expected to rest, 
refit, and absorb replacements. This policy led to the creation of ad hoc 
task forces whose commanders and staffs lacked the type of familiarity 
with local conditions so necessary for effective counterguerrilla work. 

The government rectified this situation somewhat in 1951 by creat¬ 
ing several headquarters organizations called Combat Police Commands 
to coordinate regional police activity. The following year, Seoul replaced 
the police commands with Security Commands that integrated regional 
police and military efforts. These entities provided important stability 
with regard to staff and headquarters functions, but they still required 
augmentation from external sources to conduct major offensives. The 
assistance group also tried to replace the combat police with regiments 
of light infantry specifically earmarked for counterguerrilla work. This 
measure would have created a permanent counterguerrilla force within 
the ROK Army while allowing the police to concentrate on their civil 
duties, thereby improving the administration of civil law and reducing 
unnecessary duplication and friction between the two security services. 
The initiative, however, did not come to fruition during the war, and 
consequently the government never fully overcame the inherent weak¬ 
nesses in relying upon ad hoc troop deployments. 30 

As had been the case prior to 1950, large-scale cordon-and-sweep 
operations backed by the removal of civilians and the destruction of 
property remained the centerpiece of government efforts to clear vital 
rear areas and reduce guerrilla strongholds. During the summer of 
1950 U.S. and South Korean authorities evacuated several towns inside 
the Pusan Perimeter, deporting some 12,000 people from the town of 
Masan to isolated islands from which they were forbidden to leave. 
South Korean troops made liberal use of the torch during counterguer¬ 
rilla operations in the winter of 1950, and by the end of the follow¬ 
ing year intense guerrilla and counterguerrilla activity had generated 
over 500,000 refugees in South Cholla Province alone. The winter of 
1951-1952 brought more of the same as ROK soldiers destroyed all 
structures and evacuated all civilians in the areas targeted by Operation 
Ratkiller, and the South Koreans continued to employ such methods 
for the duration of the war. 31 

U.S. Army Counterguerrilla Operations, 1950-1953 

While the South Koreans and their KMAG advisers continued to 
bear the brunt of the irregular conflict after June 1950, America’s entry 
into the Korean Civil War meant that U.S. Army combat units would 


102 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


perform counterguerrilla missions for the first time since America’s 
intervention in the Russian Civil War thirty years before. U.S. com¬ 
manders, however, deliberately minimized their participation in the 
internal war. This was a sensible policy because it maximized the 
respective strengths of the two armies—American firepower was best 
suited for the conventional battlefront, while the lightly armed South 
Koreans had the linguistic and cultural skills necessary to deal with the 
population. Respect for Korean sovereignty and the necessity of closely 
coordinating political and military initiatives further favored this divi¬ 
sion of responsibility. Consequently, direct American participation in 
the counterguerrilla war was largely confined to the period between 
June 1950 and June 1951, when South Korean weaknesses and rapid 
fluctuations in the battlefront necessitated the commitment of U.S. 
forces to counterguerrilla operations. Once the front had stabilized, 
U.S. combat units rarely executed major counterguerrilla actions. 

Two other factors influenced the conduct of American antiguerrilla 
operations during the Korean War. First, the dire situation in which 
U.S. forces found themselves in 1950-1951 necessitated that U.S. 
commanders initially focus their efforts on maintaining the security of 
critical lines of communications rather than pacifying the countryside. 
Second, as noted earlier, many Korean Communists responded to the 
UN’s 1950 counteroffensive by attempting to flee back into North 
Korea. Their activities, while conducted in an irregular fashion and 
disruptive to UN rear areas, were not aimed at establishing a permanent 
presence in the countryside. This greatly simplified American opera¬ 
tions, as did the fact that many Communist units were demoralized in 
the wake of the Inch’on landings and chose to surrender rather than 
fight when cornered by UN forces. 32 

To accomplish the largely defensive task of securing rear areas 
against Communist partisans, U.S. commanders fell back on their 
World War II experiences for guidance. This was necessary because 
the 1949 edition of FM 100-5, Field Sendee Regulations, Operations , 
did not provide a doctrine for rear area security. In time, and with the 
help of Army Chief of Staff General J. Lawton Collins who gave a copy 
of the procedures he had implemented to secure rear areas as a corps 
commander in Europe during World War II, the Eighth Army devel¬ 
oped an extensive rear area security system. This system was based on 
the principle of economy of effort because it called for service troops 
to bear most of the burden for their own defense. Eighth Army sited 
and grouped installations for defensibility against partisan attack, pro¬ 
tecting them with perimeter defenses, fortifications, and minefields. 
Mobile reaction units stood ready to reinforce beleaguered posts, while 


103 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



An armored railway car used by U.S. Military Police to keep South 
Korea's railroad lines free of guerrilla interference 


armed convoys and armored trains manned by U.S. and South Korean 
military policemen shuttled back and forth along defoliated routes 
where trespassers could be shot on sight. The Korean Communications 
Zone supervised the security effort, organizing elaborate communica¬ 
tions and intelligence networks that coordinated the actions of instal¬ 
lation garrisons, civil and military police, security units, and mobile 
reaction forces to keep vital lines of communications and supply free 
of partisan interference. Since the Communications Zone also handled 
much of the UN Command’s civil affairs responsibilities and oversaw 
the activities of South Korea’s two major territorial counterguerrilla 
organizations—the Central and Southern Security Commands—it was 
in an excellent position to coordinate the civil and military aspects of 
the antipartisan campaign, although in practice things did not always 
run smoothly. 33 

While World War II precedent helped Army officers establish 
defensive measures against partisans, they had little other than a few 
brief paragraphs in FM 100-5 to guide them on the offensive aspects 
of antipartisan warfare. Maj. Robert B. Rigg, a veteran observer of 
irregular warfare operations in Iraq and China, attempted to fill the 
gap in an article that appeared in the September 1950 edition of 
the US. Army Combat Forces Journal. After calling on the Army to 
devote more attention to counterguerrilla warfare in its training and 
doctrinal systems, Rigg prescribed a number of techniques, including 


104 









The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


counterambush drills, raids and encirclements, refugee screening, 
village searches, and the employment of natives as guards and spies. 
Finally, Rigg impressed upon his readers that the “guerrillas depend 
a lot on the local population. And so it is essential to get the local 
people on your side. ... It will save you time and effort. You’ll never 
succeed without them.” 34 

Rigg’s advice was sound, and shortly after the publication of his 
article the Department of the Army rushed newly developed counter¬ 
guerrilla doctrinal materials to Far East Command. Both the article and 
the new doctrine were undoubtedly helpful, but their appearance in 
late 1950 meant that they were not fully digested by field commanders 
until after the Army had begun to exit the counterguerrilla business in 
early 1951. Consequently, U.S. counterguerrilla operations during the 
Korean War are best understood by studying the operations themselves 
rather than the emerging written doctrine, which is considered more 
fully in the following chapter. 

American participation in the counterguerrilla war reached its 
height between October 1950 and February 1951. Following the 
Inch’on landings and the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, Eighth 
Army ordered IX Corps to clear a large swath of South Korea of 
Communist troops cut off by the rapid U.S. advance. By the end of 
October IX Corps estimated that it had killed, wounded, or captured 
over 35,000 enemy troops behind UN lines. After the ROK III Corps 
assumed the job of securing South Korea in early November 1950, the 
U.S. IX Corps moved into North Korea where it was again involved in 
clearing out guerrillas and bypassed enemy troops between Kaesong 
and P’yonggang. Meanwhile, along North Korea’s eastern coast the 3d 
Infantry Division struggled to secure the X Corps’ rear area from an 
estimated 25,000 Communist partisans. After the Chinese had pushed 
the X Corps out of North Korea in December, the corps’ 7th Infantry 
Division joined with South Korean troops to combat Communist par¬ 
tisans in South Korea’s Taebaek Mountains. These efforts ultimately 
culminated in the “Pohang Guerrilla Flunt” of January-February 1951, 
a major encirclement operation conducted near Andong by the 1st 
Marine Division, South Korean forces, and some U.S. Army units. 3 ’ 

When faced with the task of mopping up Communist irregulars 
behind UN lines in late 1950 and early 1951, U.S. corps commanders 
adopted a territorial approach, assigning divisions to specific geo¬ 
graphical areas of responsibility. These areas were often quite large. 
The zone of responsibility in October 1950 of the X Corps’ 25th 
Infantry Division spanned about 16,835 square kilometers, while the 3d 
Infantry Division in November was responsible for over 8,029 square 


105 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Soldiers from the 65th Infantry bring in captured guerrillas. 


kilometers. Commanders of these and other divisions assigned to coun¬ 
terguerrilla duty likewise assigned their subordinate units to subsidiary 
zones in what the X Corps called the “war of areas.” Once fortified 
base camps had been established, the units extensively patrolled their 
assigned sectors. In the case of the 25th Infantry Division, most patrols 
were conducted at the platoon level until several reversals at the hands 
of larger North Korean formations led to the institution of company- 
size patrols. Once a patrol had located a guerrilla unit, it usually estab¬ 
lished a base of fire while sending a detachment to outflank and sur¬ 
round the enemy. The most successful operational technique consisted 
of establishing a battalion-size blocking position while one or more 
additional units swept in from another direction, driving the enemy 
onto the blocking force. 36 

The dispersed and irregular nature of counterguerrilla operations 
in Korea’s mountainous terrain led to some modifications in standard 
procedures. Regimental combat team commanders frequently split their 
heavy mortar companies to provide each of their battalions with some 
organic fire support. Likewise, division commanders assigned artillery 
battalions to the regimental combat teams, occasionally attaching bat¬ 
teries to individual rifle companies. Because of the threat of surprise 
attacks, commanders established defensive perimeters around all camp, 
fighting, and battery positions, detailing infantrymen to protect artil¬ 
lery batteries. Artillery firebases in guerrilla regions deployed their 
guns so that each piece was aimed in a different direction in order to 


106 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


provide immediate 360 degree coverage. Fear of ambush initially led 
the 25th Infantry Division to prohibit its subordinate units from operat¬ 
ing outside the range of supporting artillery. The division also banned 
unobserved artillery fire to reduce the chance of inflicting civilian 
casualties. 37 

U.S. ground commanders found that spotter aircraft were invalu¬ 
able in keeping tabs on the guerrillas, while fighter-bombers provided 
fire support in areas that were inaccessible to artillery. Korea’s rugged 
terrain, communication difficulties, and inadequate liaison arrange¬ 
ments reduced the effectiveness of air and artillery fire support. So 
too did the guerrillas’ habits of moving at night and hiding in caves 
and forests. Nevertheless, under the right circumstances fire support 
from artillery, aircraft, and warships could inflict significant casualties. 
Most guerrilla casualties were from ground action, however, and at 
one point during its counterguerrilla operations in the fall of 1950 the 
25th Infantry Division transferred most of its artillery and tanks to the 
conventional battlefront because it concluded that it no longer needed 
such weapons once the guerrillas in its area had become scattered and 
dispersed. 38 


An American convoy, supported by aircraft, defends itself against a guer¬ 
rilla ambush in the Korean mountains. 



107 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


The extensive employment of infiltrators by the North Koreans 
and Chinese also led the Army to modify its tactics on the conventional 
battlefield. Concerned that bypassed enemy units would initiate parti¬ 
san operations, Eighth Army adopted a policy of conducting offensive 
operations by broad sweeps in which units advanced line-abreast at 
a slow pace regulated by phase lines and territorial boundaries. But 
such tactics also made exploitation of momentary breaches in enemy 
lines difficult and permitted the Communists to withdraw and regroup. 
Nevertheless, Eighth Army adhered to the technique in the belief that it 
was more cost effective than having to hunt down bypassed units. 4 

Modifications such as these improved American military effective¬ 
ness, but the real key to enhanced performance was better training. 
Although the 25th Infantry Division concluded after its counterguer¬ 
rilla duty in 1950 that “the war in Korea has not, as yet, revealed 
any necessity for a change in established U.S. training doctrines,” 
significant problems did in fact exist. Most U.S. soldiers were poorly 
trained during the early phases of the war and neglected to practice 
proper security procedures, often suffering heavily from Communist 
ambushes as a result. U.S. soldiers also exhibited deficiencies in 
patrolling techniques and rarely operated at night, when the guerrillas 
were most active. These facts reinforce the conclusion that the heavy 
casualties inflicted on Communist partisans in October 1950 by the IX 
Corps were due more to the overall military situation than to American 
tactical expertise. 40 

Eventually the situation improved, as General Collins directed that 
all troops undergo counterguerrilla training. Collins’ order included rear 
echelon soldiers like bakers, mechanics, and truck drivers who were 
especially unprepared for the type of combat and security roles that the 
irregular war imposed on them. Soon stateside training centers were 
instructing Army service personnel in basic infantry skills, perimeter 
defense, psychological warfare, night movements, and counterguerrilla 
operations in order to enable the rear echelon soldier “to withstand suc¬ 
cessfully the pressures imposed on him by enemy infiltration tactics, 
guerrilla operations, and unorthodox fighting methods.” 41 

Such training programs helped U.S. soldiers adapt to the challenges 
they faced in Korea. Yet for the most part these adaptations were minor 
because conventional doctrines for small-unit action, patrolling, march 
and camp security, and night, mountain, and forest operations proved 
sufficiently effective. In fact, Army Field Forces concluded that while 
the Korean experience had demonstrated deficiencies in training and 
execution, it had essentially ratified prewar doctrine, and, consequently, 
the Army did not push for an overhaul of U.S. doctrine after the war. 


108 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


The only truly innovative counterguerrilla tactic to emerge from the 
war came from the marines, who experimented with using helicopters 
to transport counterguerrilla patrols. 42 

One area where the Army did experiment was in the use of spe¬ 
cial units foi counterguerrilla action. Stung by Communist infiltra¬ 
tion tactics, in August 1950 Eighth Army created a Ranger company 
for conducting a variety ol infiltration, reconnaissance, raiding, and 
guerrilla warfare missions. The Eighth Army placed the unit under 
the command of Col. John H. McGee, a former guerrilla leader in the 
Philippines who based his training program on those of the prewar 
Philippine Scouts and Merrill’s Marauders, a World War II raiding out¬ 
fit. Meanwhile, in the fall of 1950 General Collins established a Ranger 
Training Command at Fort Benning, Georgia, that eventually trained 
and deployed six additional Ranger companies to Korea. Because field 
commanders often did not have suitable offensive missions for the 
Rangers to perform, they frequently used them in rear area security and 
counterguerrilla roles—missions for which the Rangers had not been 
intended but which put to good use their intense training in small-unit 
tactics and night operations. 43 

Occasionally, commanders supplemented the Rangers with task 
forces drawn from conventional infantry formations in corps reserve 
status. An even more exotic organization was Far East Command’s 
Special Activities Group, a combined force of U.S. Army Rangers, 
U.S. Marine Raiders, Royal Navy Commandos, Royal Navy volunteers, 
South Korean police, and a South Korean Special Attack Battalion. 
Originally intended for coastal raiding, the British and U.S. Marine 
Corps elements failed to materialize, and the group ended up pulling 
mostly counterguerrilla duty. 

The Special Activities Group conducted intensive saturation patrol¬ 
ling throughout the X Corps area from December 1950 until its disestab¬ 
lishment in April 1951. Seek-and-destroy operations, night movements, 
and ambushes, including squad-size stay-behind ambushes, were also 
part of its modus operandi. The unit screened refugees, destroyed villages 
and buildings that could be used by guerrillas, and provided medical 
treatments to civilians. Its effectiveness was enhanced by the provision 
of radios down to the squad level and the establishment of an extensive 
intelligence network in conjunction with local authorities and Korean and 
American intelligence services. 44 

Although they performed well in counterguerrilla roles, special 
autonomous units like the Rangers and the Special Activities Group were 
expensive to maintain and were bedeviled by logistical, manpower, and 
administrative problems. Many commanders were unenthusiastic about 


109 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Special Activities Group soldiers engage guerrillas. 


the special units, whom they rarely used in roles for which they had 
originally been intended. As the South Koreans increasingly assumed 
responsibility for rear area security, even this mission fell by the wayside. 
Consequently, the Army disbanded all such units in 1951, choosing to 
boost combat performance by providing Ranger training to the Army as 
a whole, rather than by relying on special formations. 4 ' 

Counterguerrilla operations inevitably brought U.S. soldiers into 
close contact with South Korean civilians. Thrown among people with 
whom they could neither communicate nor readily tell friend from foe, 
U.S. soldiers occasionally took out their frustrations on the population. 
U.S. Army doctrine had long recognized that troop misconduct was 
counterproductive, and U.S. commanders urged their subordinates to 
prevent and punish all transgressions. Still, given the uncertainties of 
the irregular war, soldiers needed “to be suspicious of any civilians 
in front line areas.” U.S. commanders removed civilians from sensi¬ 
tive areas on both humanitarian and security grounds and imposed 
nighttime curfews that permitted troops to shoot anyone found moving 
around in civilian dress. U.S. units on counterguerrilla duty routinely 
took all males whom they encountered as prisoners, sending them to 
camps where Korean-American interrogation teams determined their 
fate. Similar procedures were employed to screen refugees and search 
villages. Typically, U.S. soldiers would surround a village, using artil¬ 
lery fire to block escape avenues that could not be covered by troops, 
while South Korean police combed the hamlet looking for suspects 


110 




The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


and contraband. Once a village had been cleared, the Americans helped 
reestablish local government and police organizations, creating central 
intelligence agencies to better coordinate military-police intelligence 
efforts. 46 

The Army also sometimes inflicted reprisals on Korean civilians 
for guerrilla actions, evacuating towns and destroying villages. Most 
of these actions occurred during the early stages of the war, when U.S. 
troops felt particularly vulnerable and had the most opportunity to 
come into contact with Korean irregulars. Although punitive measures 
tended to alienate people, their effects were complex, as villagers often 
allied with one side for reasons of self-preservation rather than ideol¬ 
ogy. Noting this phenomenon, one American who had been commis¬ 
sioned by the U.S. Army to study the guerrilla war in Korea endorsed 
the use of collective punishments against communities where guerrillas 
were active, writing that “it is well recognized that an innocent person 
punished singly or collectively for crimes he did not commit will tend 
to take an almost extreme initiative to prove his innocence; suffer the 
punishment with growing and sincere indignation; and finally turn with 
acute wrath against the real culprit in his midst because of whom he, 
the innocent, is suffering. It may be quite desirable to use this method 
no matter how harsh it be, at least to arouse the sentiments of the bulk 
of the population against [the guerrilla].” Far East Command, however, 
rejected this conclusion, stating that “communal punishment in retali¬ 
ation for the misdeeds of a few is not considered justifiable or wise.” 
Consequently, U.S. officials generally discouraged retaliatory actions 
in all but extreme cases. 47 

Although many of the Army’s dealings with the civilian popula¬ 
tion were restrictive in nature, Far East Command’s comments on 
retaliation indicate that Americans were mindful of the human aspects 
of the conflict. Indeed, between 1951 and 1953, the Civil Assistance 
Command waged a relentless war on poverty and disease. Manned 
largely by U.S. Army military and civilian personnel, the UN Civil 
Assistance Command, Korea, fed and clothed 4 million refugees, 
established health care facilities that treated nearly 3 million civilians, 
and provided over 60 million inoculations. It helped plan and imple¬ 
ment programs that restored water, sanitation, and other public utilities, 
constructed and repaired transportation and communications systems, 
and improved agricultural and industrial production. U.S. soldiers 
chipped in on their own time, building orphanages, clinics, schools, 
and churches. This charity work eventually gave birth to the Armed 
Forces Assistance to Korea (AFAK) program in 1953. Conceived by 
Eighth Army commander Lt. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, the assistance 


111 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



American and Korean soldiers deliver food to indigent civilians. 


program combined American financial aid with the voluntary labor 
of U.S. soldiers to construct over 3,780 facilities by the end of the 
decade. Few of these efforts were undertaken specifically in response 
to the guerrilla war. Most were performed either out of humanitarian 
concerns or to facilitate the prosecution of the war. Yet they reflected 
an old principle of U.S. military government and civil affairs doctrine, 
for by ameliorating the hardships of war, the Army was also reducing 
the risk of civil unrest. 4 * 

U.S. commanders tried to treat the civilian population humanely, 
but they sometimes had difficulty exercising similar restraint toward 
their enemies, especially during the darker moments of 1950 and 1951. 
Although Far East Command demanded that captured North Korean 
soldiers be treated as prisoners of war, U.S. commanders were some¬ 
what confused by the status of guerrillas and North Korean regulars 
disguised as civilians. One senior commander opined that “we can¬ 
not execute them but they can be shot before they become prisoners,” 
while another solved the problem by “turning them over to the ROK’s 
and they take care of them.” 49 Eventually the UN Command clarified 
the situation, insisting that all guerrillas be treated as prisoners of war. 
South Korean treatment of captured guerrillas, on the other hand, con¬ 
tinued to be “less sympathetic,” and in 1952 the government redefined 
all “guerrillas” as “bandits” so that it would not have to treat captured 
irregulars according to the precepts laid down in the 1949 Geneva 
Convention/" 


112 






The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 



A civil affairs soldier organizes a village election. 


While proper treatment of civilians and captured guerrillas 
remained thorny issues, the most heavy-handed tactic employed by 
U.S. counterinsurgency forces involved devastation. Like their KM AG 
and South Korean counterparts, US. field commanders recognized that 
the guerrillas depended on local food and shelter to survive the harsh 
Korean winters, and they embraced devastation as a means of denying 
such sustenance to the guerrillas. Although devastation was designed 
to achieve military as opposed to punitive ends, Eighth Army com¬ 
mander Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway was disturbed by the political 
and humanitarian ramifications of such policies, ordering on 2 January 
1951 that “destruction for destruction’s sake will not be permitted, 
nor will anything approaching ‘scorched earth’ tactics be condoned.” 
Pressed by a major Communist Chinese offensive to their front and har¬ 
ried by thousands of Korean irregulars to their rear, U.S. commanders 
found adhering to the spirit of his instructions difficult. 51 

For example, on 16 January 1951, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, 
commander of the X Corps, asked Ridgway for additional air liaison 
teams, noting that “air strikes with napalm against these guerrilla bands 
wherever found is a most effective way to destroy not only the bands 
themselves, but the huts and villages in the areas they retire to. . . . As 
you know, I have instituted a campaign of burning these huts in guer¬ 
rilla-infested areas, and an increased number of planes, with an effec¬ 
tive means for controlling them, will greatly assist in this program.” 
Ridgway did not object, and by the end of the month Almond reported 


113 












Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


that “by air and artillery fire and by infantry patrols those villages, 
buildings and shelters which are used, or suspected of being used, by 
enemy personnel are being eliminated. This program is driving the 
enemy into the open where he is more readily located and destroyed 
and also where he suffers from the elements to the full extent.” The 
destruction in some areas was quite intense, as Almond reported con¬ 
ducting 436 incendiary operations in just one nine-day period in what 
he labeled the “zone of destruction.” 52 

Maj. Gen. David G. Barr, commander of the 7th Infantry Division 
that was charged with conducting the incineration campaign around 
Tangyang, reported after flying over the area on 18 January that the 
“smoke from flaming villages and huts has filled valleys [in the] vicin¬ 
ity [of] Tangyang with smoke three thousand feet deep and blinded all 
my observations and created [a] flying hazard.” Having seen the dam¬ 
age that heavy-handed tactics could inflict on a government’s popular¬ 
ity from his days in China, Barr openly worried that 

methodical burning of dwellings is producing hostile reaction. . . . People 
cannot understand why US troops burn homes when no enemy present. . . . 
Methodically burning out poor farmers when no enemy present is against the 
grain of U.S. soldiers. From house burning we already have estimated 8,000 
refugees and expect more. These are mostly the old, crippled, and children. My 
view is that the meager gain from this program is infinitesimal when compared 
to the disastrous psychological effect it will produce. I recommend that selec¬ 
tive burning be substituted for the methodical burning. 53 

Almond quickly approved Barr’s recommendation stating that his 
intention had never been to authorize indiscriminate destruction. Yet 
he continued to use fire as a weapon, instructing Barr to “select and 
burn out those villages in which guerrillas or enemy forces were being 
harbored, willingly or unwillingly, by the inhabitants, and those habita¬ 
tions ... from which guerrillas could not otherwise be barred.” Almond 
further cautioned that “it would be most unfortunate if the impression 
described in your message were allowed to become widespread or 
publicized,” and to help avoid a public outcry, unit commanders were 
advised to describe their activities as “clearing fields of fire” rather 
than “scorched earth” tactics. 54 

By March 1951 Ridgway had become so concerned with the 
amount of destruction being inflicted by both the conventional and 
unconventional aspects of the war that he reaffirmed his ban on the 
“wanton destruction of towns and villages, by gun-fire or bomb, unless 
there is good reason to believe them occupied.” American incendiarism 
subsided somewhat thereafter, if for no other reason than the fact that 


114 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 



U.S. soldiers depart from a village that they have just set on fire 
in order to prevent guerrillas from using it. 


American participation in counterguerrilla operations also declined 
after the spring of 1951. Nevertheless, destruction remained an inte¬ 
gral part of Americas counterguerrilla repertoire, and in the fall of 

1951 the U.S. Marines added a new dimension when, in Operations 
Houseburner I and II, they pioneered the use of helicopters to ferry 
incendiary patrols to their targets. 55 

By the spring of 1951 exfiltration, surrenders, and combat casu¬ 
alties had cut the number of guerrillas and North Korean partisans 
in South Korea by nearly 50 percent. A year after the breakout from 
the Pusan Perimeter, American intelligence estimated that the num¬ 
ber of guerrillas operating in South Korea had fallen to about 7,500. 
Of these, approximately 20 percent were North Koreans and another 
20 percent were southerners forcibly recruited into guerrilla ranks. 
The change in the composition of the guerrillas from a nearly all¬ 
southern, all-volunteer force to one that was increasingly composed 
of northerners and impressed men reflected the heavy toll inflicted 
by government counterguerrilla operations and the inability of the 
guerrillas to attract new recruits, both because of their own weak¬ 
nesses and the success of the government’s countermeasures. By 

1952 the allies had reduced the guerrilla problem to a nuisance 
level. The guerrillas struggled on after the July 1953 armistice, 
more as fugitives than as a viable combat force, and by 1955 they 
were all but eliminated.''’ 


115 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

Assessment 

South Korea and its UN partners defeated the insurgency through 
a mixture of political and military means. Of the two, however, force 
had proved to be the most important ingredient. Harried by increasingly 
effective police and military operations, cut off from external aid by 
the establishment of a solidified battlefront, and denied access to local 
succor by government policies of devastation, population removal, and 
population and resources control, the guerrilla movement gradually 
withered and died. As in the Philippines, Korean guerrillas usually 
surrendered not because of the lure of government aid programs, but 
because they tired of living on the run, without proper food, clothes, 
shelter, or security. Military action thus proved to be the key.' 7 

This is not to say that political action did not play an important 
role, but in the end, that role was a complementary one marred by 
flaws in conception and execution. Of all of the political programs, 
improvements in troop behavior probably had the most immediate 
effect on the counterguerrilla war, as many commanders reported posi¬ 
tive results when the troops behaved more civilly toward the populace. 
Nevertheless, this problem was never fully rectified, as misconduct, 
terror, and reprisal remained features of the war." 

The record of the allied propaganda campaign was similarly spotty. 
Although the assistance group had begun developing counterguerrilla 
propaganda materials in 1948, by 1950 it was forced to concede that “no 
concentrated program of anti-guerrilla propaganda of any import has 
been accomplished to date.” As the war progressed, the allies stepped 
up the propaganda campaign, linking it with troop behavior and civil 
assistance initiatives. During Operation Ratkiller in the winter of 
1951-1952, the U.S. Air Force dropped 12 million propaganda leaflets 
while teams from the South Korean Ministries of Education, Social 
Affairs, Justice, and Home Affairs fanned out to assist the population 
and restore local government services. The Army Staff in Washington 
welcomed the news, noting that “reports of good treatment of civilians 
by the ROK forces during the current antiguerrilla campaign reflect an 
awareness of the importance of popular support in checking the guerril¬ 
las.”" The results of such endeavors, however, were mixed. In the case 
of Ratkiller, the 12 million leaflets produced only 300 surrenders, 
while the 100,000 counterguerrilla leaflets dropped per month by the 
Air Force in the fall of 1952 produced few defectors. 60 

Most of the allies’ early propaganda efforts had been directed at the 
guerrillas themselves, but by the end of the war the allied propaganda 
machine had redirected its attention from the guerrillas to the wider 


116 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


population upon whom the guerrillas depended for their survival. 61 
Even so, much of this effort missed the mark. In contrast to Communist 
propaganda, allied propaganda failed to touch home, focusing too often 
on high-sounding idealistic phrases that have been just empty words to 
the peasant and worker.” The allies also did not sufficiently coordinate 
their propaganda with meaningful civil relief and reform programs. In 
either case, the Army’s Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare 
concluded alter the war that the consolidation psychological warfare 
effort—the branch of psychological warfare aimed at friendly and 
occupied populations—had been unsatisfactory. 62 

While sporadic misconduct and inadequate propaganda may have 
weakened the anti-Communist drive, the real limits to its effectiveness 
came from the civil front. The civil war had created massive social and 
economic turmoil, so much so that the people of South Korea were 
significantly worse off by the end of the conflict than they had been 
before it had begun. By the time of the armistice, 1 million South 
Koreans were dead and 7.5 million were either refugees or destitute. 
At least 600,000 homes had been destroyed, while both rice production 
and per capita income were 30 percent lower than 1949 levels. 63 Foreign 
aid had barely enabled the country to survive, and by June 1953 the 
United States believed that restoring South Korea to its preinvasion 
standard of living would take three years and an additional $ 1 billion 
in aid. Nor had the political situation improved. The government had 
not had a chance to implement the 1949 land reform program before 
the North Korean invasion threw the country into chaos, while the 
State Department ruefully noted that the Rhee administration evinced 
a “tendency toward irresponsible, capricious administration, stultifying 
mediocrity and widespread corruption,” which, when coupled with its 
willingness to use the police to intimidate voters and members of the 
political opposition, created an “unfortunate trend toward autocratic, 
one-man, unrepresentative government.” Thus, while U.S. policy mak¬ 
ers might have wished that victory had been achieved under different 
circumstances, in the end the South Koreans had defeated the insur¬ 
gency without making any significant social, economic, or political 
improvements. 64 

The Truman-Era Counterinsurgencies in Retrospect 

In 1945 the U.S. Army did not have a significant body of doc¬ 
trine concerning the suppression of insurgencies. A hall-decade of 
global warfare had washed away virtually all of the Army’s institutional 
memory regarding its many prewar experiences in irregular combat and 


117 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


overseas nation building. Nor did Americans find applying the lessons 
of one postwar insurgency to the next easy, partly because each event 
was governed by its own set of circumstances and partly because the 
insurgencies occurred virtually simultaneously True, the conclusion of 
the Chinese and Greek Civil Wars in 1949 had permitted the transfer¬ 
ence of some ideas and personnel to the Philippines and Korea, but for 
the most part U.S. advisers approached their duties without any detailed 
knowledge about revolutionary warfare. Although American ignorance 
was hardly blissful, it had, at least, permitted advisers to adapt to the 
situation at hand, taking into account the unique political, military, cul¬ 
tural, and topographical circumstances under which each conflict was 
fought, unencumbered by preconceived notions, pedantic doctrines, or 
slavish parroting of Mao. 

The doctrinal void notwithstanding, U.S. soldiers addressed the 
postwar insurgencies with surprising consistency. The fact that all of 
the insurgencies were guided by Communists who shared to one degree 
or another a common insurrectionary creed contributed to these simi¬ 
larities, as did the very nature of guerrilla warfare itself, whose age-old 
principles naturally begot similar responses. Yet there were also other 
elements at work. 

On the political front, the consistency with which the U.S. Army 
approached the postwar conflicts stemmed in part from the foreign 
policies of the Truman administration. In the administration’s opin¬ 
ion, political unrest flourished in situations where governments were 
unstable and undemocratic, where social problems went unaddressed, 
and economic hardships abounded. Rectify these problems, and com¬ 
munism would not be able to flourish. Social, political, and economic 
reform thus became Truman’s primary weapon in the war against com¬ 
munism, an approach reflected in each of the postwar insurgencies as 
well as in the Marshall Plan. 

The Truman administration’s philosophy set the parameters under 
which the Army operated in the postwar decade, but it was not unique. 
In fact, Truman’s policy was entirely consistent with the way the United 
States had traditionally approached nation-building and counterinsur¬ 
gency tasks. Fueled by a heady blend of American democratic and 
progressive values, sociological and anthropological theory, mission¬ 
ary zeal, and ethnocentric conceptions of the “white man’s burden,” 
American civil and military policy makers had been prescribing the 
same troika of good government, socioeconomic improvement, and 
military action for nearly a century.' 1 " 

U.S. soldiers shared the administration’s faith in this creed, though 
they tended to believe that meaningful social and economic progress 


118 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


could not be achieved until after military security had been established. 
In time many, though not all, American diplomats came to agree with 
them, citing both the necessities of the situation and the difficulty of 
transforming indigenous institutions in the midst of a war. Indeed, 
Ameiican policy makers were destined to relearn what previous gener¬ 
ations of U.S. soldiers and statesmen had already found to be true—that 
reshaping foreign societies was exceedingly difficult, especially when 
the indigenous elites whose cooperation the United States needed had a 
vested interest in the status quo. All too often American officials found 
that they lacked the leverage necessary to force America’s allies to 
enact meaningful internal reforms. This proved true not only in Greece 
and South Korea, where the indigenous governments triumphed with¬ 
out making significant reforms, but in the Philippines as well, where 
many of the reforms turned out to be rather superficial. Only in China 
was the United States willing to stick to its principles and allow an 
inflexible regime to fall. The terrible ramifications of that fall—the loss 
of 20 percent of the world’s population to communism and acrimoni¬ 
ous debates at home over “who lost China,” further undermined U.S. 
leverage, as did the growing stakes of the Cold War. Thereafter, when 
forced to chose between supporting a less than democratic regime or 
permitting a Communist overthrow, the United States frequently chose 
to stand by its imperfect allies, still urging them to reform but refusing 
to abandon them when they did not. 66 

Frustrated by their inability to reshape foreign societies, U.S. offi¬ 
cials often sought solace in the idea that a change of leadership in the 
country in question would provide the necessary impetus for overcom¬ 
ing the many cultural and institutional barriers to reform. Speaking of 
Chiang Kai-shek, Secretary of State Dean Acheson concluded that “if 
there is one lesson to be learned from the China debacle it is that if 
we are confronted with an inadequate vehicle, it should be discarded 
or immobilized in favor of a more propitious one.” There was merit 
in this idea, and, by helping to elevate Alexander Papagos and Ramon 
Magsaysay, the United States had indeed succeeded in infusing life into 
otherwise pallid counterinsurgency efforts. Such an approach was not a 
panacea, however, as the United States would soon learn. ’ 7 

Although many U.S. soldiers were unfamiliar with the Army’s 
many irregular warfare and nation-building experiences of the previous 
century, the Army had distilled the lessons of these experiences into a 
doctrine that reflected the many subtleties and ambiguities of operations 
of this nature. On the political front, FM 27-5, United States Army and 
Navy Manual of Civil Affairs Military Government (1947), called for 
unified and coordinated civil-military action, flexible plans, clear and 


119 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


consistent policies, honest and efficient administration, sensitivity to 
indigenous cultural norms, and humane treatment of civilians and pris¬ 
oners. For the most part, the Army endeavored to follow this doctrine 
during the postwar insurgencies, although it often found that personal, 
political, bureaucratic, and national differences and rivalries impeded 
the attainment of these goals. Indeed, Army leaders soon discovered 
that implementing a clear and coordinated civil-military program was 
no easier in the 1940s and 1950s than it had been during the previous 
century in places like the American South during Reconstruction, the 
western frontier, Cuba, the USSR, or the Philippines. Still, enlightened 
benevolence, no matter how hard to achieve in practice, remained the 
goal. 

Yet while FM 27-5 called for intelligent and humane policies to 
cultivate public favor, it also recognized that “restrictive or punitive 
measures,” including “the taking of hostages, the imposition of col¬ 
lective fines, or the carrying out of reprisals,” were often necessary 
to suppress a restive population. Humanity and political acumen 
alike dictated that commanders resort to the severest measures only 
in extreme circumstances and when conditions were most favorable 
for their success. But such weapons remained an essential part of the 
military’s arsenal, just as Magsaysay’s right hand of force had backed 
the left hand of friendship, and in every postwar insurgency the twin 
principles of attraction and chastisement had guided U.S. Army actions 
and advice. 68 

Militarily, U.S. soldiers adhered to the broad antipartisan prin¬ 
ciples that had been included in every edition of FM 100-5 since 
1939. They consistently pressed for inspired leadership and aggres¬ 
sive action, urging their counterparts to break free from blockhouse 
mentalities and enervating piecemeal deployments. Killing the enemy 
and breaking his will to resist, not seizing and holding terrain, were 
the U.S. Army’s counterinsurgency goals. Cutting the guerrilla off 
from cross-border sanctuaries and external support was also a car¬ 
dinal American tenet. But U.S. soldiers also realized that victory 
could not be achieved without isolating the guerrilla from his sources 
of internal support. Here, once again, attraction and chastisement 
played their intricate dance. In one hand, the United States and its 
allies offered civil, medical, and economic palliatives to ease wartime 
suffering and attract public support, while in the other they wielded 
a variety of repressive measures designed to attack the insurgents’ 
presence among the population and control antigovernment behavior. 
Among these were the establishment of effective police and counter¬ 
intelligence systems; the issuance of identity cards; the imposition 


120 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


ol restrictions on travel, on communications, and on the possession 
of arms, food, and other commodities; the suspension of certain 
democratic rights, like habeas corpus ; and, when necessary, devasta¬ 
tion and population relocation. Some soldiers fretted that such steps 
smacked of totalitarianism, yet most came to accept them as unpleas¬ 
ant but necessary weapons in the war against subversion. 

Operationally, Americans favored large-scale encirclements and 
sweeps, coordinated with civil and police measures, to break the hold 
of large guerrilla units over rural base areas. In China and Greece, U.S. 
planners recommended a strategy of systematic and progressive area 
clearance. In the Philippines, where the guerrillas were more localized, 
and in Korea, where external forces greatly disrupted the prosecution of 
the internal campaign, less systematic approaches were used, with the 
Americans usually counseling that the indigenous government attack 
the largest guerrilla concentrations first before targeting less impor¬ 
tant areas. In either case, such operations were difficult to execute but 
could, under favorable conditions, yield impressive results. Once the 
guerrillas had been dispersed, smaller operations followed to further the 
disintegration of the insurgents, although both the Americans and their 
allies often had trouble making this shift in a timely manner. 

In every insurgency U.S. advisers followed the guidance contained 
in FM 100-5 and sought to establish defended villages and local 
self-defense units to free the regular army for offensive operations, 
to protect the people from guerrilla harassment, and to prevent those 
same people from aiding the insurgents. Concern over the reputation 
of paramilitary groups for lawlessness and brutality, however, led the 
Army to move cautiously on creating such entities, lest their excesses 
undermine the goals of pacification. But U.S. advisers had very little 
control over indigenous governments on this score, especially since 
many governments organized paramilitary forces without American 
material aid. Consequently, the best the United States could do was 
to urge indigenous authorities to impose tighter control and discipline 
over the paramilitaries, and occasionally, as in Greece, to use the provi¬ 
sion of material assistance as leverage to win such improvements. 

Tactically, American advisers adhered to the old credo of finding, 
fixing, and finishing the enemy that had guided U.S. soldiers since the 
Indian wars. 69 They consistently tried to wean their counterparts from 
relying too heavily on fire support, believing that close infantry action 
represented the only way to destroy the enemy effectively. Careful 
reconnaissance, rapid deployments, vigorous attacks, and relentless 
pursuits were the principal methods by which the Army hoped to defeat 
the guerrillas in the field. Consequently, American advisers emphasized 


121 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the basics of infantry warfare—small-unit tactics, marksmanship, fire 
discipline, patrolling and reconnaissance, ambush and counterambush 
drills, night movements, and march and camp security. Although they 
recognized that mobility was essential, they preferred to inculcate old- 
fashioned foot mobility rather than to foster a dependency on trucks 
or expensive, “high tech” fixes like parachutists and helicopters. U.S. 
soldiers were less united, however, with respect to the advisability of 
creating specially trained counterguerrilla units, endorsing such initia¬ 
tives in Greece, the Philippines, and to a lesser extent South Korea, 
while ultimately deciding against the incorporation of specialist units 
into their own force structure during the Korean War. 

The overall consistency with which the United States Army 
approached the insurgencies of 1945-1954 indicates the existence 
within the officer corps, in practice if not on paper, of a set of common¬ 
ly held assumptions and responses to wars of this type. These responses 
represented less a fixed doctrine than a conglomeration of tools bound 
loosely together by a set of concepts and principles taken from a variety 
of sources—conventional military doctrine, indigenous methods, Axis 
precedents, American ideology and foreign policy, and more generally 
from certain broad continuities in Western political, legal, and cultural 
thought. During the 1950s, the Army began to translate and interpret 
this loose body of thought and experience into a formal, written doc¬ 
trine for counterinsurgency. 


122 



Notes 


' Bruce Cumings, The Origins oj the Korean War, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton 
University Press, 1981-1990), 1:66-67, 201-04, 350-67, 375-79, and 2:247; Allan 
Millett, “Understanding Is Better Than Remembering: The Korean War, 1945-1954,” 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Lectures in War and Peace (Manhattan: Kansas State University, 
1997); HQ, Far East Command (FEC), History of the U.S. Army Forces in Korea, vol. 
3, pt. 3, pp. 18-24, copy in CMH. 

Quote from FEC, History of U.S. Army Forces in Korea, vol. 3, pt. 3, p. 17. 
Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:280; Despatch, Seoul 389 to State, 15 Apr 50, 
sub: Guerrilla Strength and Activity, 658644, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. 

1 John Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea, 1948-50: The Local Setting of the 
Korean War” (Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 1982), pp. 321-22, 345-48; 
Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:238^10, 282-83; Msg, Seoul 706 to State, 
8 Nov 49, sub: Guerrilla Raid on Chinju, 612081, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; Jon 
Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea, The Unknown War (New York: Pantheon, 
1988), p. 34. For background on the organization of the guerrilla movement, see Fred 
Barton, Operational Aspects of Paramilitary Warfare in South Korea, ORO-T-25 
(FEC) (Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 
1952); W. Phillips Davison and Jean Hungerford, North Korean Guerrilla Units, 
RM-550 (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1951); Aerospace Studies Institute, Guerrilla 
Warfare and Airpower in Korea, 1950-1953 (Maxwell Air Force Base [AFB], Ala.: 
Air University, 1964). 

4 John Lord et al., A Study of Rear Area Security Measures (Washington, D.C.: 
Special Operations Research Office, American University, 1965 ), p. 116; Memo, Lt Gen 
Hodge for Lt Gen Wedemeyer, c. 1946, sub: Joint Korean-American Conference, box 
83, U.S. Army Forces in Korea (USFIK), RG 332, NARA. 

Robert Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea: KMAG in Peace and War, Army 
Historical Series (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1962), pp. 
15, 26; Allan Millett, “Captain James H. Hausman and the Formation of the Korean 
Army, 1945-1950,” Armed Forces and Society 23 (Summer 1997): 503-39; Riley 
Sunderland and Marshall Andrews, Guerrilla Operations in South Korea, 1945-53, in 
HERO, Isolating the Guerrilla, 2:262; Samuel Sampson, Training Mission of Officers 
Assigned to the Korean Military Advisory Group (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry 
School, 1952-53), p. 7. 

6 Ltrs, Maj Gen Orlando Ward, CG, 6th Inf Div, to Col Rothwell H. Brown, Comdr, 
20th Inf, 6 Feb 48 and 10 Mar 48, Rothwell H. Brown Papers, MHI; Rpt, U.S. Military 
Advisory Group Korea (KMAG), Ofc of the Chief, 15 Oct 49, sub: G-3 Summary, sec. 
I, an. 7, pp. 1-2, 091 Korea, 1949-50, P&O, RG 319, NARA; Ltr, Brig Gen William L. 
Roberts, Ch, KMAG, to Maj Gerald E. Larson, Senior Adviser, ROK 8th Div, 4 May 50, 
333, KMAG, RG 338, NARA. 

7 Rpt, FEC Intel Sum 2704, 3 Feb 50, 633512; Despatch, Seoul 325 to State, 1 Apr 
50, sub: Formation of Police Battalions, with atch, 655899. Both in ID, G-2, RG 319, 
NARA. 

8 Quote from Rpt, KMAG, G-2, n.d., sub: Guerrilla Activity for the Period Ending 19 
Dec 51, p. 3, and see also pp. 4-5, 950126, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. For an account of 


123 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the Cheju-do rebellion, see John Merrill, “The Cheju-do Rebellion,” Journal of Korean 
Studies 2 (1980): 139-98. 

g For examples of government terror, see Briefing Paper, National Police Force, atch 
to Provisional Military Advisory Group (PMAG), Extension of Notes, Data on Korean 
Security Forces for Mr. Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army, 1949, 091 Korea, 
1949-50, P&O, RG 319, NARA; Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” pp. 236-38, 
255, 265, 357-59; Despatch, Seoul 788 to State, 10 Dec 49, sub: Summary of Political 
Affairs of the Republic of Korea, November 1949, p. 5, 620368, ID, G-2, RG 319, 
NARA; MFR, U.S. Adviser to the Director, Uniform Bureau, Korean National Police, 3 
Aug 48, sub: Beating and Torture Cases, box 83, USAFIK, RG 332, NARA. 

10 First quote from Ltr, Brig Gen William L. Roberts to Maj Gen Charles L. Bolte, 
19 Aug 49, 091 Korea, P&O 1949-50, RG 319, NARA. Second quote from KM AG, 
Advisers’ Handbook, 1949, p. 4, KMAG, RG 338, NARA. Memos, Roberts for All 
Advisers with Regiments and Divisions, 21 Mar 50, sub: Reporting Violations of 
Standing Orders, and Tubb for American Advisers, 3 May 50, sub: Special Subject for 
Korean Army. Both in 353, KMAG, RG 338, NARA. 

" Quotes from Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” pp. 300-301, and see also pp. 
331, 358-61. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War , 2:403, 472; Despatches, Pusan 27 to 
State, 23 Jul 52, sub: Guerrilla Movement in South Korea (hereafter cited as Pusan 27), 
Incl 1, p. 27, 1092486, and Seoul 788 to State, 10 Dec 49, sub: Summary of Political 
Affairs of the Republic of Korea, November 1949, pp. 14-16, 620368. Both in ID, G-2, 
RG 319, NARA. 

12 Quote from Rpt, Army G-2, 19 Jan 50, sub: General Survey of Guerrilla Activity in 
South Korea, p. 6, Historians files, CMH. USAFIK G-2 Periodic Rpt 1093, 23 Mar 49, 
p. 2, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” pp. 257, 357-59; 
Incl 1 to Despatch 720, Seoul to State, 12 Nov 49, sub: Guerrilla Raid on Chinju; 
Governor Submits Resignation, 612082, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; Cumings, Origins 
of the Korean War , 2:289; Memo, HQ, Korean Army, for All Commanders, 27 Apr 51, 
sub: Military Conduct Toward Civilians, KMAG, RG 338, NARA. 

13 Roberts had lobbied for heavier equipment once the possibility became clear that 
the ROK Army would have to be prepared to fight North Korea’s conventional forces, 
but Washington denied his request fearing Rhee might invade the North. Cumings, 
Origins of the Korean War , 2:264, 397-98, 400; Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea , p. 
186; Memo, Roberts for All American Advisers with Units in the Field, 24 Aug 49, and 
Ltr, Roberts to Lt Col Walden J. Alexander, Senior Adviser, ROK 5th Division, 3 Sep 
49, both in 333, KMAG, RG 338, NARA; KMAG, Advisers’ Handbook, 1949, p. 3. Mil 
Hist Ofc, HQ, U.S. Army, Japan, United States Military Advisory Group to the Republic 
of Korea, pt. 4, KMAG’s Wartime Experiences, 11 July 1951 to 27 July 1953, n.d., pp. 
339-40, CMH (hereafter cited as KMAG’s Wartime Experiences). 

14 Cumings, Origins of the Korean War , 2:286-88, 389, 573. For Japanese counter¬ 
guerrilla techniques, see Lincoln Lee, The Japanese Army in North China, 1937-1941 
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); Gene Hanrahan, Japanese Operations 
Against Guerrilla Forces, ORO-T-268 (Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1954); U.S. Army Forces, Far East, Military Studies 
on Manchuria, bk. 4, Historical Observations of Various Operations in Manchuria, ch. 
9, Bandits and Inhabitants (1955), CMH. 

15 Quote from Despatch, Seoul 788 to State, 10 Dec 49, sub: Summary of Political 
Affairs of the Republic of Korea, November 1949, p. 13. Cumings, Origins of the 


124 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


Korean War, 2:244, 247^48, 257, 271, 289; Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” p. 
243; FEC Intel Sum 2984, 10 Nov 50, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; Pusan 27, Incl 1, pp. 
7, 22; Virgil Ney, Notes on Guerrilla War: Principles and Practices (Washington, D.C.: 
Command Publications, 1961), p. 118; HQ, Eighth U.S. Army in Korea (EUSAK), 
Enemy Tactics, 1951, p. 119, box 73, USARPAC History files, RG 338, NARA (here¬ 
after cited as EUSAK, Enemy Tactics). 

16 Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:256; U.S. Army Intelligence Center, 
History of the Counter Intelligence Corps, n.d„ pp. 140-41, CMH; Memo, Roberts for 
All American Advisers with Units in the Field, 24 Aug 49; Merrill, “Internal Warfare 
in Korea,” pp. 243, 353; Pusan 27, Incl 1, p. 20; Despatch 720, Seoul to State, 12 Nov 
49, sub: Guerrilla Raid on Chinju; Governor Submits Resignation; Rpt, KMAG, Weekly 
Intel Sum, 13 Feb 52, p. 3, 950126, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. 

17 Rpt, PMAG, 22 Nov 48, sub: Weekly Activities of PMAG, KMAG, RG 338, 
NARA; Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” p. 127. 

18 First quoted words from Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” p. 351. Second 
quoted words from Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:399. For other examples of 
“search and destroy” phraseology, see FEC, History of U.S. Army Forces in Korea, vol. 
3, pt. 3, p. 17; KMAG’s Wartime Experiences, p. 367; Special Activities Gp Command 
Rpt, Jan 51, Infantry School Library, Fort Benning, Ga. 

19 Quote from Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” pp. 253-54. Even during 
Ratkiller, perhaps the most effective encirclement of the war, as many as 60 percent of 
the guerrillas were thought to have escaped. Pusan 27, Incl 1, p. 22. 

20 Walter Hermes, Truce Tent and Fighting Front, United States Army in the Korean 
War (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1966), p. 347; KMAG’s 
Wartime Experiences, pp. 367-69; Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower, p. 56. 

21 Sunderland and Andrews, Guerrilla Operations in South Korea, pp. 257-58; MFR, 
23 Jul 48, sub: Opinion of the Settlement of the Cheju Situation: 23 Jul 48, at Cheju-do 
by Koh Pyung Uk, Superintendent of National Police Department, box 83, USAFIK, 
RG 332, NARA. 

22 Despatch, Seoul 389 to State, 15 Apr 50, sub: Guerrilla Strength and Activity; Rpt, 
USAFIK G-2, 23 Mar 49, sub: Military Estimate of Situation in Korea, p. 14, 543752, 
ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. 

23 Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea, p. 76; Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” 
pp. 362,413-14. 

24 Quote from Office, Chief, Army Field Forces, Training Bulletin 2, 9 Nov 50, p. 
7, in 350.9 AFF Training Bulletins, CMH. Allan David, ed., Battleground Korea, the 
Story of the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division (1951); EUSAK, Enemy Tactics, pp. 113-14; 
“Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower,” pp. 34-47; John Beebe, “Beating the Guerrilla,” 
Military Review 35 (December 1955): 10; HQ, Far East Command, Issue 9, Supplement, 
Enemy Documents Korean Operations, 10 Apr 51, Historians files, CMH; Barton, 
Operational Aspects, pp. 19, 26-27; Paul Hughes, Battle in the Rear: Lessons from 
Korea (Student paper, U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, CGSC, 1988), 
pp. 7-8. 

25 Lord, Rear Area Security, p. 118. 

26 Roy Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu, United States Army in 
the Korean War (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1961), pp. 
722-28; Halliday and Cumings, Unknown War, p. 146; FEC Intel Sum 3001, 27 Nov 50, 
p. 2-b, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA. 


125 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

27 FEC Intel Sum 3071, 5 Feb 51, p. M-3; Pusan 27, Incl 1, pp. 2, 15; Lord, Rear 
Area Security, p. 121. 

28 In Operation Ratkiller, Van Fleet took advantage of winter weather and a relative 
lull at the front to launch a major counterguerrilla drive in southwest Korea. The opera¬ 
tion, which lasted from December 1951 to March 1952, was multiphased and involved 
several encirclements and repeated sweeps using approximately 30,000 South Korean 
Army, police, and paramilitary soldiers. Paik Sun Yup, From Pusan to Panmunjom 
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1992), p. 183. 

:Q Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower, pp. 42-43; Paik, From Pusan to Panmunjom , 
p. 184. The UN allocated ten fighter-bomber sorties per day for Ratkiller. William 
Dodds, “Anti-Guerrilla Warfare” (Student thesis, AWC, 1955), pp. 26-27; DeWitt 
Smith, Counterguerrilla Operations: Can We Learn from Task Force Paik? (Student 
paper, AWC, 1966). 

30 Richard Weinert, The U.S. Army and Military Assistance in Korea Since 1951, 
CMH-132, U.S. Army Center of Military History, n.d., p. III-9, CMH; “KMAG’s 
Wartime Experiences,” pp. 110-13, 367-70; Pusan 27, Incl 1, p. 5. 

31 Most of the 10,000 prisoners taken during Ratkiller were civilians, 60 percent 
of whom were eventually classed as guerrilla sympathizers. Rpt, KMAG, Weekly 
Intel Sums, 19 Dec 51, p. 1, and 10 Jan 52, p. 2, both in 950126, ID, G-2, RG 319, 
NARA; Pusan 27, Incl 1, pp. 7, 14; Merrill, “Internal Warfare in Korea,” pp. 352-56; 
Appleman, South to the Naktong , p. 478; Despatch, Pusan 177 to State, 25 May 51, 
sub: Anti-Guerrilla Activities of ROK 8th Division in the South Kyongsang and Cholla 
Provinces, 812113, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; Rpt, KMAG, Guerrilla Activity for the 
Period Ending 14 Nov 51, p. 4, KMAG, RG 338, NARA. 

David, Battleground Korea. 

33 Hughes, Battle in the Rear, pp. 9-11; William Hacker, G-2 Section, Logistical 
Command (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1952-53); HQ, EUSAK, Special 
Problems in the Korean Conflict, 1952, pp. 98, 106-07, CMH; History of the Korean 
Communications Zone, n.d., USARPAC History file, box 339, RG 338, NARA; 772d 
Military Police Battalion, SOP [Standing Operating Procedure] for Railway Security, 
1953, Infantry School Library. 

4 Robert Rigg, “Get Guerrilla-Wise,” U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal 1 
(September 1950): 11. 

35 X Corps Command Rpt, Jan 51, pp. 24-25, box 33, USARPAC History file, RG 
338, NARA; Appleman, South to the Naktong , pp.721-28, 740. 

36 Quoted words from X Corps, Big X in Korea, 1954, p. 19, and see also pp. 20-21, 
copy in CMH. MFR, HQ, IX Corps, 30 Oct 50, sub: Resume of Operations, IX Corps 
War Diary, Oct 50, box 1766; 25th Inf Div History, Oct 50, bk. 1, pp. 1-14, 23; IX Corps 
War Diary, 1-31 Oct 50, bk. 1, p. 3, box 1761; 2d Inf Div G-3 Opns Rpt, Sep-Dee 50. 
All in RG 407, NARA. Richard Harris et al., Rear Area Operations, Korean Conflict, 
Rear Area Security, October 1950 (Staff Group B, Section 1, Division A, CGSC course. 
May 1984), CGSC-N-20326.15, CGSC Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Richard 
Pullen, ed., 25th Infantry Division, Tropic Lightning in Korea (Atlanta, Ga.: Albert 
Love, n.d.); Max Dolcater, ed., 3d Infantry Division in Korea (Tokyo: Toppan Printing 
Co., 1953), pp. 67-86. 

17 Harris, Rear Area Operations. 

Ross Barrett, The Role of the Ground Liaison Officer with a Tactical Control 
Group and Close Air Support (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1952-53), pp. 


126 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


11 12, Hairis, Real Aiea Operations; David, Battleground Korea ; Appleman, South to 
the Naktong , p. 721. 

39 EUSAK, Special Problems, p. 98. 

Quote from 25th Inf Div History, Oct 50, bk. 1 , p. 45. Agenda Prepared by Army 
Field Forces Observer Team 5, FECOM, Aug 51, p. 171, 319.1, Army Field Force 
Reports, CMH. 

41 Quote from Jean Moenk, Training During the Korean Conflict, 1950-1954, Office 
of the Historian, U.S. Army Transportation Command, 1962, p. 22, and see also pp. 

9-10, 23, copy in CMH. EUSAK, Special Problems, pp. 57-58; Hughes, Battle in the 
Rear, pp. 18-19. 

Lynn Montross, Cavalry of the Skyv The Story> oj Marine Corps Combat Helicopters 
(New York: Harper & Bros., 1954), pp. 172-73, 178; Homer Wright, Ambush Tactics as 
Applied by the Chinese and North Korean Forces Against U.S. Troops in Korea (Student 
paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1952-53), pp. 13-15. 

44 Waller Booth, “The Pattern That Got Lost,” Army 31 (April 1981): 62-64; David 
Gray, “Black and Gold Warriors: United States Army Rangers During the Korean War” 
(Ph D. diss., Ohio State University, 1992), pp. 35, 43, 94-95; John Provost, “Nomads 
of the Battlefield: Ranger Companies in the Korean War, 1950-1951” (Master’s thesis, 
CGSC, 1989), pp. 3—5, 20—21, 31, 35—38; David Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry? The 
Changing Role of the U.S. Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada (Westport, Conn.: 
Greenwood Press, 1992), p. 112. 

44 X Corps, G-2, Enemy Tactics, Bulletin 2, c. Spring 1951, USARPAC History, box 
79, RG 338, NARA; James Olson, Organization and Use of an Anti-Guerrilla Unit in 
Korea During the Period November 1950 to March 1951 (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry 
School, 1952-53); EUSAK, Special Problems, p. 106; X Corps Command Rpts, Jan 
51, p. 25, and Apr 51, p. 57, both in box 33, USARPAC History file, RG 338, NARA; 
Special Activities Gp, Command Rpts for Dec 50 and Jan, Feb, and Mar 51, Infantry 
School Library. 

Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry , pp. 122-32; EUSAK, Special Problems, pp. 
81-87. 

4,1 Quote from HQ, EUSAK, Enemy Tactics, 1951, p. 118. Memo, HQ, EUSAK, for 
Distribution, 24 Jun 51, sub: Criminal Offenses, KMAG, RG 338, NARA; Cumings, 
Origins of the Korean War , 2:690-96; Harris, Rear Area Operations; Hughes, Battle in 
the Rear, pp. 13-14; Office, Chief, Army Field Forces, Training Bulletin 1, 8 Sep 50, p. 
6, 350.9 AFF Training Bulletins, CMH; Appleman, South to the Naktong , p. 478; Memo, 
Lt Col Leon F. Lavoie, Comdr, 92d Armd Field Arty Bn, for Comdr, X Corps Arty, 22 
Nov 50, sub: Report, Special Operation ‘Sunshine,’ X Corps War Diary, Nov 50; Ltr, 
Maj Gen Laurence R. Keiser, CG, 2d Inf Div, to CG, 2d Inf Div Arty, et al., 2 Oct 50, 
G-3 Operations Orders, 2d Inf Div, Sep-Oct 50; 25th Inf Div History, Oct 50, bk. 1, p. 
14. Last three in RG 407, NARA. 

47 First quote from Barton, Operational Aspects, p. 64. Second quote from Memo, 
FEC for Adj Gen, 17 Nov 52, sub: Technical Memorandum Paramilitary Warfare in 
South Korea (FEC), “Operational Aspects of Paramilitary Warfare in South Korea,” p. 
3, in 040 ORO, 1952, RG 319, NARA. Cumings, Origins of the Korean War , 2:687, 
690, 706; Carl Peterson, The 1st Battalion, 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, in 
Anti-Guerrilla Operations in the Mountains East of Pyongyang, North Korea, November 
1950 (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1952-53), p. 8; Despatch, Seoul 389 to 
State, 15 Apr 50, sub: Guerrilla Strength and Activity. 


127 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


48 Alfred Hausrath, Civil Affairs in the Cold War, ORO-SP-151 (Bethesda, Md.: 
Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1961), pp. 59-60; Daugherty 
and Andrews, Historical Experience with Civil Affairs, pp. 446-^17; Thomas Teraji, 
History of the Korean War, vol. 3, pt. 5, Civil Affairs/Civil Assistance Problems 
(Military History Section, UN Command and HQ, Far East Command, c. 1951), pp. 
1-8, CMH; “The Second Year in Korea,” Army Information Digest 7 (November 1952): 
27; James Mrazek, “The Fifth Staff Officer,” Military Review 36 (March 1957): 47-51. 
Coordinating a multinational civil affairs and relief effort in a sovereign country during 
a period of intense disruption was no easy task, and the American-UN effort experienced 
many difficulties. Carlton Wood et al., Civil Affairs Relations in Korea, ORO-T-2464 
(Baltimore, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1954); Darwin 
Stolzenbach and Henry Kissinger, Civil Affairs in Korea, 1950-1951, ORO-T-184 
(Baltimore, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1952). 

49 Rpt, HQ, EUSAK, 8 Jan 51, sub: Conference Notes, box 20, Matthew Ridgway 
Papers, MHI. 

50 Quoted words from Agenda Prepared by Army Field Forces Observer Team 5, 
FECOM, Aug 51, p. 1. Pusan 27, p. 3; CINCFE Directive, 5 Jul 50, reissued as Admin 
Order 12, HQ, Korean Army, 18 Nov 50, KMAG, RG 338, NARA. 

51 Quote from Memo, Ridgway for CGs, I, IX, X Corps and Republic of Korea Army, 2 
Jan 51, box 17, Ridgway Papers. Memo for Ridgway, 5 Jan 51, sub: Notes of Conference 
at HQ EUSAK, box 20, Ridgway Papers; Special Activities Group, Command Rpt, Jan 
51; 25th Inf Div History, Oct 50, bk. 1, p. 44, RG 407, NARA; Summary for 1000 Hour 
Briefing, 26 Jan 51,1 Feb 51, and 4 Feb 51, in KMAG, RG 338, NARA. 

52 First quote from Ltr, Almond to Ridgway, 16 Jan 51. Second and third quotes from 
Ltr, Almond to Ridgway, 25 Jan 51. Both in box 17, Ridgway Papers, MHI. 

53 Msg, Barr to Almond, 18 Jan 51, Miscellaneous Radios CG X Corps, Korean War 
General files, X Corps, Edward M. Almond Papers, MHI. 

54 First two quotes from Msg, Almond to Barr, 19 Jan 51, Miscellaneous Radios CG 
X Corps, Korean War General files, X Corps, Almond Papers. Third and fourth quotes 
from Robert Black, Rangers in Korea (New York: Ivy Books, 1989), pp. 46-48. 

55 Quote from Cumings, Origins of the Korean War , 2:755. Montross, Cavalry of the 
Sky, p. 173. 

56 Barton, Operational Aspects, pp. 12-14. 

7 Rpt, Ofc, Chief of Psychological Warfare, 10 Nov 53, sub: Psychological Warfare 
Operations Deficiencies Noted in Korea—A Study, p. 72, 091 Korea, Office, Chief 
of Special Warfare, 1951-54, RG 319, NARA; Sunderland and Andrews, Guerrilla 
Operations in South Korea, pp. 257-58, 263. 

58 FEC Intel Sum 2246, 28 Oct 48, p. 3, 504233, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; 
Handwritten Note, 1 Feb 50, atch to Memo, Hussey for G-2, KMAG, 28 Jan 50, sub: 
G-2 Report, 319.1, KMAG, RG 338, NARA; Pusan 27, Incl 1, p. 5; Despatch, Pusan 
177 to State, 25 May 51, sub: Anti-Guerrilla Activities of ROK 8th Division in the South 
Kyongsang and Cholla Provinces. 

59 First quote from Rpt, Army G-2, 19 Jan 50, sub: General Survey of Guerrilla 
Activity in South Korea, p. 6. Second quote from Rpt, Army G-2, 18 Jan 52, sub: 
Weekly Intel Rpt 152, p. 39, and see also p. 37, Historians files, CMH. 

60 In addition to the 300 guerrillas who surrendered due to UN propaganda dur¬ 
ing Ratkiller, another 1,400 other prisoners (roughly 10 percent of the total number 
of prisoners taken during the operation) acknowledged that the leaflets lowered their 


128 


The Korean Civil War, 1945-1954 


morale. Dodds, “Anti-Guerrilla Warfare,” p. 11; Rpt, KMAG, Weekly Intel Sums, 6 
Feb 52, p. 1, and 13 Feb 52, p. 3, 950126, ID, G-2, RG 319, NARA; Paik, From Pusan 
to Panmunjom , pp. 188—89; Sunderland and Andrews, Guerrilla Operations in South 
Korea, pp. 259-60. 

61 For example, propaganda during Operation Trample (December 1953-July 1954) 
focused squarely on the people: only 3.75 million propaganda leaflets and a portion 
of the 1,700 hours of loudspeaker broadcasts were aimed at the guerrillas, while 8.95 
million leaflets, 10.6 million news sheets, 15 motion picture shows, and the remaining 
broadcast hours were directed at the population. Qtrly Hist Rpt, KMAG, Jan-Mar 54, 26 
Jul 54, p. 13; Qtrly Hist Rpt, KMAG, Apr-Jun 54, 5 Oct 54, pp. 6-7, 9. Both in KMAG, 
RG 338, NARA. 

62 Quote from Dodds, “Anti-Guerrilla Warfare,” p. 10, and see also p. 11. Beebe, 
“Beating the Guerrilla,” p. 16. Communist guerrillas sometimes welcomed American 
leaflet drops, using the sheets either as toilet paper or as supplies for their own propa¬ 
ganda machine, printing Communist slogans on the back of allied leaflets and issuing 
them to villagers. Such activity compelled the allies to print two-sided leaflets. Rpt, HQ, 
Korean Communications Zone, Intel Sum 75, 31 Jan 54, p. 4, 950794, ID, G-2, RG 
319, NARA; Barton, Operational Aspects, pp. 29, 40; Rpt, Ofc, Chief of Psychological 
Warfare, 10 Nov 53, sub: Psychological Warfare Operations Deficiencies Noted in 
Korea—A Study, pp. 71-72. 

63 Of South Korea’s 21.5 million population, 2.5 million were refugees and 5 million 
more were indigent. FRUS, 1952-54, 154245M9. 

64 Quotes from FRUS, 1952-54 , 15:1680, and see also 1245-49, 1797-98. When 
a 1952 study commissioned by the Army criticized the allies for trying to defeat the 
insurgency by military measures alone, Far East Command conceded the advantages 
of a combined political, economic, and military approach but noted that the massive 
socioeconomic dislocation caused by the war, when coupled with inadequate financial 
resources and incomplete cooperation on the part of the Rhee government, limited what 
could be done. Memo, FEC for Adj Gen, 17 Nov 52, sub: Technical Memorandum 
Paramilitary Warfare in South Korea (FEC), “Operational Aspects of Paramilitary 
Warfare in South Korea,” p. 2; Barton, Operational Aspects, pp. 4-5; Rpt, HQ, Korean 
Communications Zone, Intel Sum 81, 16 Mar 54, pp. 1-2, 6950794, ID, G-2, RG 319, 
NARA; Donald Howard, “Anti-Guerrilla Operations in Asia” (Student thesis, AWC, 
1956), p. 41; Lord, Rear Area Security, p. 135. 

65 For background, see Andrew Birtle, US. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency 
Operations Doctrine, 1860-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 
History, 1998), pp. 249-54. 

66 American support was never unconditional, as Fulgencio Batista found to his detri¬ 
ment when in 1959 the United States stood by and permitted Fidel Castro to overthrow 
the Cuban dictator. Shafer, Deadly Paradigms , p. 226. 

67 Quote from Shafer, Deadly Paradigms , p. 229. Merrill, “Internal Warfare in 
Korea,” p. 175. 

68 FM 27-5, United States Army and Navy Manual of Civil Affairs Military 
Government , 1947, pp. 9-10. 

69 Bohannan, “Antiguerrilla Operations,” p. 20; Dodds, “Anti-Guerrilla Warfare,” 
pp. 1, 32-33. Compare the modern concept with Lt. Gen. Nelson A. Miles’ formula for 
counter-Indian warfare, as found in Birtle, Counterinsurgency Doctrine , p. 69. 


129 






































































































4 


The Development of 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine 

1945-1960 


While American soldiers abroad cobbled together impromptu mea¬ 
sures to fight the spate of insurgencies that erupted after 1945, back 
home the U.S. Army took its first steps toward developing a formal 
counterguerrilla doctrine. Finding a way to defeat the ongoing insurgen¬ 
cies was not the primary impulse for the effort. Rather, the driving force 
behind this, as well as most other defense initiatives during the early 
years of the Cold War, was the prospect of a major war with the Soviet 
Union. Since the Soviets had successfully employed partisans against 
Germany during World War II, U.S. Army planners fully expected that 
they would do so in any future conflict with the United States. Prudence 
dictated that the Army prepare for such a possibility. 

In the late 1940s Army Field Forces was in charge of generating 
doctrine, but there was no fixed system for its development. Sometimes 
Army Field Forces assigned particularly knowledgeable individuals to 
write doctrine in their area of expertise. In other cases, it formed boards 
or committees. Most of the work was performed at Army branch schools, 
with each school writing manuals applicable to its branch of service. In 
the case of guerrilla warfare, the Army chose to assign the job of writing 
initial doctrine to a single individual, Lt. Col. Russell W. Volckmann. 

Russell Volckmann was well qualified to write about irregular 
operations. A 1934 Military Academy graduate, Volckmann had been 
stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded in December 
1941. Rather than surrender with the rest of the Filipino-American 


131 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


forces in the spring of 1942, he escaped from Bataan and made his 
way to the mountains of northern Luzon. Over the next three years he 
fought behind the lines, organizing a large guerrilla force that eventu¬ 
ally helped liberate the Philippines. Consequently, when Army Field 
Forces decided that it needed someone to develop doctrine on irregular 
warfare, Volckmann seemed a logical choice. In 1949 the Army sent 
him to the Infantry School at Fort Benning to write a pair of manuals 
on guerrilla and counterguerrilla warfare—the first U.S. Army manu¬ 
als devoted entirely to these subjects. Published in 1951, these manu¬ 
als arrived too late to influence the Chinese and Greek civil wars but 
were employed during the later stages of the Korean and Philippine 
conflicts. They became the basis of all future Army counterguerrilla 
doctrine. 1 


Sources of Doctrine 

In formulating counterguerrilla doctrine during the late 1940s and 
early 1950s, Volckmann and subsequent doctrinal writers drew from 
several sources. Past American experience in counterguerrilla opera¬ 
tions played a role, although in a general way, because few soldiers 
had any detailed knowledge of these events in the Army’s history. 
Occupation duties during and immediately after World War II were 
perhaps more influential, and many of the principles that eventually 
emerged in the new manuals reflected the Army’s recent experiences 
with military government. Perhaps most influential, however, were the 
precedents established by the Axis powers in combating Allied resis¬ 
tance movements. 

Axis experience, and the lessons derived therefrom, reached 
American doctrine writers in a variety of ways. Some, like Volckmann, 
had experienced Axis countermeasures firsthand as members of Allied 
partisan units. A more indirect method of transmission occurred as 
a result of America’s involvement in the postwar insurgencies. Most 
of the countries afflicted with Communist rebellions after 1945 had 
been occupied by the Axis during the war, and their newly recon¬ 
stituted armies were staffed by men who had served either in Axis 
collaborationist units or in wartime resistance movements. Not sur¬ 
prisingly, these men applied their knowledge of Axis methods during 
the post-1945 civil wars, and American observers picked up on their 
example. 2 

To such personal and indirect modes of transmission the Army 
added deliberate and direct study of Axis methods, most notably 
those of Nazi Germany. During the war the Allies had collected and 


132 



The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 



disseminated much information 
about German antipartisan tech¬ 
niques. This effort had not been 
a mere academic exercise, * for 
the Allies believed that Germany 
might resort to guerrilla warfare 
to resist an Allied occupation. 
Since the Allies did not have any 
immediate experience in counter¬ 
guerrilla warfare themselves, they 
published doctrinal pamphlets 
prescribing German counterguer¬ 
rilla techniques should Adolf 
Hitler’s threatened “Werewolf” 
guerrilla movement come to life. 
This approach continued into the 
postwar era when, in November 
1947, an Army report specifically 
called for the study of German 
counterguerrilla methods as a vehicle for the development of American 
doctrine. Volckmann adopted this methodology, using not only the 
Allied pamphlets, but a U.S. Army translation of the German Army’s 
basic counterguerrilla treatise, the 1944 manual Fighting the Guerrilla 
Bands.' 

The postwar Army added to this body of knowledge through an 
intensive historical program. By 1949 U.S. Army, Europe, had spon¬ 
sored 721 historical studies written by German officers about their 
wartime experiences. Twenty-one of these monographs were devoted 
entirely to partisan and antipartisan warfare, while another forty- 
four touched on these subjects in varying degrees. After the outbreak 
of the Korean War, the chief of Army Field Forces, with the help 
of the chief of military history, immediately distributed all of this 
information to help commanders develop techniques to use against 
Korean guerrillas. 4 The Army followed up this release by producing 
a special series of sixteen German-derived pamphlets that it distrib¬ 
uted to every unit down to the battalion level. Two of the sixteen 
were devoted to antiguerrilla operations, while another five touched 
on the subject. The distribution of these reports, coupled with their 
distillation in Army journals and curricular materials, ensured that 
the lessons of Germany’s counterguerrilla operations during World 
War II would exert a profound influence over American doctrine for 
many years. 5 


Colonel Volckmann in the 
Philippines at the end of 
World War II 


133 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces 

Based largely on this distillation of World War II experience, 
Volckmann produced a draft counterguerrilla manual in May 1950. The 
relevance of this document became immediately apparent when, the 
following month, the Army found itself pitted against Communist guer¬ 
rillas and infiltrators in South Korea. Because the Army’s doctrinal sys¬ 
tem would take some time to publish the urgently needed manual, the 
Infantry School rushed the manuscript into print in September 1950 as 
Special Text (ST) 31-20-1, “Operations Against Guerrilla Forces.” The 
Army formally published Volckmann’s work as FM 31-20, Operations 
Against Guerrilla Forces , five months later, in February 1951. 

Recognizing that guerrilla warfare could take various forms, from 
partisan activities during an otherwise conventional conflict to “a peo¬ 
ple’s war or revolution against existing authority,” Volckmann decided 
to focus the manual on two types of situations. The first was conflicts 
“conducted by irregular forces (supported by an external power) to 
bring about a change in the social-political order of a country without 
engaging it in a formal, declared war,” as had occurred in Greece and 
South Korea prior to 1950. The second was operations conducted by 
irregulars in conjunction with regular forces as part of a conventional 
war, as had been practiced by the Soviet Union during World War II. 
In both situations, Volckmann believed guerrillas required a secure 
base or cross-border sanctuary, external material aid, and an extensive 
clandestine network of intelligence agents, propagandists, organizers, 
and support personnel. He also expressed the traditional view that guer¬ 
rillas were rarely capable of achieving victory without the support of 
regularly trained and equipped forces. Finally, he acknowledged that 
guerrilla warfare had significant political and economic components 
and that a guerrilla movement could not survive unless it had the sup¬ 
port of the population, upon which it depended for recruits, labor, food, 
shelter, and intelligence. This recognition played an important part in 
FM 31-20’s counterguerrilla strategy. 6 

Volckmann asserted that preventing the formation of a guerrilla 
movement was easier than destroying it. Consequently, the manual 
advocated the creation of proactive political, economic, security, and 
intelligence measures to redress the causes of discontent or, should 
this fail, to suppress potential resistance before it could evolve into a 
full-scale insurgency. The first step in any counterinsurgency program 
was to formulate “a broad, realistic” politico-military plan that was 
“based on a detailed analysis of a country, the national characteristics, 
and the customs, beliefs, cares, hopes, and desires of the people.” 


134 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


Such a plan, the manual stated, offered “the best solution to prevent, 
minimize and combat guerrilla warfare,” for “political, administra¬ 
tive, economic, and military policies, intelligently conceived, wisely 
executed, and supported by appropriate propaganda, will minimize the 
possibility ol a massive resistance movement.” This prescription was 
one of the major lessons of Germany’s tailed Russian campaign, as 
Hitler s oppressive and exploitative polices had fomented, rather than 
quelled, resistance. FM 31—20 specifically enjoined its readers not to 
make the same mistake. 

While acknowledging the importance of politics in guerrilla war¬ 
fare, the manual refrained from prescribing a set political program 
for counterinsurgency, both because Volckmann understood that each 
situation was unique and because the formulation of policy was largely 
outside the Army’s purview. The manual therefore confined its sug¬ 
gestions to general themes that had guided past American occupation, 
pacification, and nation-building operations. Specifically, it enjoined 
commanders to foster trust and goodwill between the Army and the 
people by restoring law, order, and socioeconomic stability; by provid¬ 
ing humanitarian relief; and by initiating programs to alleviate some of 
the grievances that might fuel resistance movements. 8 

Although political measures were important, Volckmann main¬ 
tained that intelligence, propaganda, and military force were equally 
necessary. Good intelligence was fundamental to the formulation of 
both pacification and military plans. FM 31-20 therefore advocated 
giving commanders more intelligence and counterintelligence person¬ 
nel than would normally be allocated for conventional operations. 
Psychological warfare specialists were equally important to win over 
the population against the irregulars, while military force provided 
the fuel that propelled the entire campaign forward. Volckmann also 
believed that commanders should employ sufficiently large and capable 
forces, both to maximize the chance of a quick battlefield victory and 
to overawe the opposition and avoid any perception of weakness that 
might encourage further resistance. 1 ' 

Armed with a comprehensive, coordinated politico-military plan 
backed by adequate intelligence, psychological, and military resources, 
a commander was ready to undertake pacification operations. For 
analytical purposes, Volckmann introduced the concept of dividing the 
theater of operations into three zones: areas controlled by the guerrillas, 
areas controlled by the government, and the contested areas that usually 
lay between the first two zones. Under the normal sequence of events 
prescribed by the manual, a commander would move his troops into a 
contested or guerrilla-controlled zone, establish bases, and inaugurate 


135 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


necessary security measures. He would next erect a military govern¬ 
ment according to standard American doctrine, enacting political, 
economic, financial, and propaganda measures designed to restore an 
atmosphere of normalcy and redress certain grievances. If appropriate, 
commanders could also institute an amnesty program. 10 

Throughout this process, the manual stressed the importance 
of maintaining continuity in both policy and personnel. Continuity 
of policy was important lest frequent shifts confuse or unsettle the 
inhabitants. Continuity in personnel was necessary so that the soldiers 
would become fully acclimated to the local political and military situ¬ 
ation. Rotating troops before they had a chance to gain and utilize 
this knowledge would be self-defeating, a lesson the Germans had 
learned in Europe and that Volckmann himself had observed when, 
as a guerrilla commander in the Philippines, he had profited from 
Japanese troop rotations. Also drawing from personal experience, 
Volckmann noted how guerrillas benefited when regional command¬ 
ers failed to coordinate their actions, and he urged his readers not 
to create situations in which guerrillas could evade counterguerrilla 
operations in one sector simply by crossing an administrative bound¬ 
ary into another." 

Once the army had occupied an area and established politico- 
military measures to assert government authority, the stage was set 
for undertaking military operations. FM 31-20 set three objectives 
for all counterguerrilla operations. The first was to isolate the guerril¬ 
las from the civilian population from which they drew their support. 
While sound policies and propaganda wooed the population, military 
and police operations would break up the guerrilla bands and drive 
them away from populated areas. Acknowledging that people were 
often reluctant to assist authorities unless they were protected from 
guerrilla retaliation, the manual urged the formation of village self- 
defense groups. It also called for the imposition of controls over human 
and materiel resources. Included in the commander’s arsenal were the 
issuance of civilian identity cards; the imposition of restrictions on 
movement, assembly, communications, and speech; curfews; village 
searches; and regulations governing the possession and transportation 
of certain commodities, most notably food, weapons, and medicines. 
FM 31-20 also authorized commanders to evacuate entire areas to 
sever the links between the local population and the guerrillas. 12 

Although Volckmann hoped that commanders would exercise 
intelligence and restraint in imposing these measures, he did not 
shrink from advocating more drastic actions, noting that “a firm, and 
if necessary harsh, attitude is necessary in dealing with the guerrillas 


136 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


and their civilian supporters. . . . Rigid military government control 
and stern administrative measures are imposed on a populace collabo¬ 
rating with hostile guerrilla forces.” 1 ’ While eschewing Axis barbarity 
and cautioning against excessive punishments that might drive previ¬ 
ously uncommitted civilians into the enemy camp, the manual insisted 
that “the rules of land warfare place upon the civilian population of 
an occupied area the obligation to take no part whatsoever in hostili¬ 
ties and authorize the occupier to demand and enforce compliance.” 
Among the more severe actions FM 31—20 permitted were the taking 
of hostages, the placement of hostages on trains and in convoys to 
deter attack, and retaliatory measures, including “reprisals against 
civilians living near” the site of an ambush. 14 

None of these measures were new. The United States and many 
other nations had availed themselves of these tools prior to 1939, 
though this had not stopped the Allies from labeling similar Axis acts 
as evidence of “totalitarianism.” Indeed, an article written to dissemi¬ 
nate FM 31-20’s precepts during the Korean War ruefully admitted 
that “we find ourselves somewhat embarrassed by our criticism of 
such measures used by our enemies during World War II.” The uneasy 
juxtaposition of severity and moderation in the manual created the 
possibility of confusion among readers, yet it also reflected a funda¬ 
mental truth about the nature of guerrilla warfare—that, no matter 
how distasteful, repressive actions under certain circumstances could 
be effective and, consequently, had to remain in the counterinsurgent’s 
arsenal. FM 31-20’s mixed message with regard to the treatment 
of a population under conditions of irregular warfare thus reflected 
the symbiotic relationship that benevolence and repression had long 
enjoyed in American military thought and practice." 

The second major counterinsurgent objective after isolating the 
guerrillas from the population was to deny them access to external sup¬ 
port. The manual did not offer any suggestions on how this goal could 
be achieved, since the elimination of external aid was largely a function 
of diplomatic, military, and geographical conditions specific to the con¬ 
flict. Consequently, the manual proceeded to the third major objective 
of a counterinsurgency campaign, destroying the guerrillas. 

Operationally, FM 31-20 called for continuous, aggressive, offen¬ 
sive action and vigorous combat patrolling to break up, harass, and 
ultimately destroy the guerrillas. It advised commanders to regard lulls 
in guerrilla activity with suspicion, lest the enemy be given time to rest 
and recover. It particularly cautioned against suspending operations 
too early, advocating that areas be thoroughly cleansed before moving 
troops on to the next sector targeted for pacification. Although FM 


137 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


31-20 copied German security techniques for the protection of instal¬ 
lations and lines of communications, it also embraced the German view 
that purely defensive measures sapped Army morale and ceded the 
initiative to the enemy, thereby allowing a guerrilla movement to grow. 
Maintaining the offensive, in contrast, not only compelled the guerrillas 
to look to their own survival, but enhanced the Army’s image among 
the population, as experience had shown that people frequently sided 
with whoever seemed to have the upper hand. The object of offensive 
action in counterguerrilla warfare was thus not only the destruction of 
the enemy’s combat forces, but also of his will and the will of his civil¬ 
ian supporters. The mere capture of terrain, on the other hand, was not 
an objective, as guerrillas rarely accepted set-piece battles and easily 
reinfiltrated areas captured by government forces once the regulars had 
departed. Only by targeting the guerrillas and the elements that sus¬ 
tained them—their command and control system, their sources of food 
and supply, and their clandestine network among the people—could the 
counterinsurgent gain decisive results. 16 

Volckmann believed that basic military principles applied to 
irregular warfare much as they did to conventional conflicts but that 
doctrine and tactics had to be adapted to the circumstances at hand. 
He further warned that “the scope and nature of a commander’s mis¬ 
sion may include political and administrative aspects seldom encoun¬ 
tered in normal operations. The methods and technique of combat 
that commanders have been trained to apply within their parent 
organizations may have to be modified or even disregarded.” Since 
these adaptations would necessarily be situation specific, he did not 
lay down fixed procedures, preferring instead to confine his discus¬ 
sion to general principles. He advocated obtaining mobility through 
initiative, improvisation, and intelligent tailoring of forces, noting the 
special advantages of airborne units and the great potential offered 
by a newfangled machine, the helicopter. He advised commanders to 
inculcate a spirit of alertness and observation in their men for intel¬ 
ligence, counterintelligence, and force protection purposes. He also 
recommended the use of cover plans, deception, and security restric¬ 
tions to prevent the enemy from learning about upcoming actions. 
He suggested that counterinsurgents conduct operations at night, in 
inclement weather, or along unanticipated avenues of approach for 
similar reasons. Finally, he noted that in the search for mobility and 
surprise, emphasis would naturally shift from large formations to 
small, highly mobile units capable of operating with the dexterity, 
speed, and stealth necessary to hunt elusive guerrilla bands across 
varied terrain. 17 


138 



The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


Although conventional infantry units would doubtlessly form the 
backbone ol any counterguerrilla campaign, Volckniann believed that 
elite antiguerrilla units would often prove more effective, and FM 31-20 
urged commanders to supplement their regular infantry with such forma¬ 
tions. Inspired by Germany s antipartisan Jagdkommando units of World 
War II, the manual described the organization, training, and functions of 
a prototype counterguerrilla unit of roughly platoon size. Designed to 
operate independently lor prolonged periods, specially trained antiguer¬ 
rilla units were to be devoid of impedimenta, armed with light, auto¬ 
matic weapons, and outfitted with plenty of radios in order to coordinate 
dispersed operations, report enemy sightings, and request assistance. 
Volckmann envisioned that these units would operate largely at night, 
employing guerrilla tactics to raid, ambush, and harass the enemy. The 
manual also suggested that antipartisan units occasionally masquerade as 
guerrillas to deceive the irregulars and their civilian supporters. 1 " 

A second category of troops endorsed by the manual was the 
indigenous unit. FM 31-20 encouraged U.S. commanders to use local 
civilians as intelligence agents, propagandists, administrators, guides, 
policemen, and special antiguerrilla troops. Care was required to screen 
such personnel for enemy infiltrators and spies, but once trustworthy 
natives had been found, they were invaluable, not only because they 
freed U.S. troops for other duties, but because their familiarity with the 
population, language, and terrain endowed them with a unique abil¬ 
ity to uncover enemy guerrillas and their civilian supporters. Friendly 
guerrillas were also useful, while the manual advised that clever poli¬ 
cies and propaganda could be used to divide the population and pit rival 
enemy bands against each other. 1 ' 

With regard to the other combat arms, FM 31-20 had little to 
say. Armor was useful in securing roads and convoys and in support¬ 
ing offensive operations when terrain conditions permitted. Although 
tanks might prove particularly demoralizing to untrained irregulars, 
FM 31-20 cautioned that they must be accompanied by infantry, as 
guerrillas often were adept at devising makeshift antitank devices. 
The manual deemed reconnaissance and ground attack aircraft to be 
especially valuable but stated that conventional methods for orchestrat¬ 
ing air support would not be flexible enough to meet the demands of 
counterguerrilla warfare, and it suggested ways in which the existing 
air control system could be modified for counterguerrilla work. Finally, 
FM 31-20 noted that the dispersed nature of guerrilla warfare and the 
rugged terrain in which irregulars usually operated greatly limited the 
usefulness of artillery in antiguerrilla operations. Flexibility, ingenuity, 
and resourcefulness were required to overcome these obstacles. The 


139 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


manual suggested that covert reconnaissance teams scout out possible 
artillery positions so that the guns could deploy rapidly just prior to an 
attack. Once established, artillery positions were to be laid out for all¬ 
round defense, using fortifications and attached infantry to secure their 
perimeters. Because of the limitations and hazards of ground move¬ 
ment and the problems that rough terrain posed to communications, 
aircraft would be used to supply firing positions, to relay messages 
between ground observers and artillery units, and to serve as airborne 
fire direction centers. 20 

In addition to frequent small-unit patrolling, Volckmann envisioned 
three types of offensive action—encirclement, attack, and pursuit. On 
this subject he most closely followed the precepts laid down by the 
German 1944 manual, copying not only the form and substance of 
Wehrmacht tactical doctrine, but the illustrative diagrams as well. The 
Germans had deemed encirclements—often executed on a large scale— 
to be the best single method of bringing the guerrillas to battle, and the 
U.S. Army agreed. Detailed planning, secrecy, and deception; efficient 
communications; rapid movements; and adequate forces were required 
if the Army was to surround the targeted area before the enemy learned 
of the operation and fled. Encirclements were to be made in depth to 
prevent enemy exfiltration, with the lead troops establishing defensive 
positions immediately upon arrival on the line of encirclement to repel 
breakout attempts. 21 

Once an area had been sealed, FM 31-20 offered commanders four 
different ways to reduce the pocket, all of which were derived from 
German practice. The first method, labeled “tightening the encircle¬ 
ment” (or “tightening the noose”), was to be used when the encircled 
area was small and the enemy weak and consisted of a simultaneous 
advance around the entire perimeter. The second, or “hammer and 
anvil,” technique involved an advance by only a portion of the encircl¬ 
ing forces, while the remaining elements waited for the guerrillas to 
be driven upon their defensive positions, which were often established 
along some barrier or obstacle. The third approach consisted of sending 
one or more forces into the encircled area, splitting it into two or more 
smaller pockets, which were then reduced piecemeal. Finally, the fourth 
tactic, which was to be used when the guerrillas had established a 
strong fortified position, employed a powerful assault force to overrun 
the main guerrilla bastion. Once this had been achieved, the encircling 
forces would advance to mop up the remaining resistance. 22 

Regardless of the means employed, once the encirclement had been 
cast the subsequent reduction was to be performed methodically and 
without haste. The Army would arrest and interrogate all civilians found 


140 





The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


inside the targeted area. Successive waves of troops would comb every 
possible hiding place for fugitives and hidden supplies. Meanwhile, 
small patrols would keep the remaining guerrillas on the run, wearing 
them down and increasing their vulnerability to psychological warfare 
initiatives. Volckmann believed that prolonged, in-depth area control 
measures such as these would ultimately produce more casualties on 
the guerrillas than those inflicted by the front-line troops during the 
initial encirclement, and consequently he deemed them critical to the 
ultimate outcome of any operation. 

While he considered encirclement to be the most effective tactic 
in the counterguerrilla’s arsenal, Volckmann acknowledged that guer¬ 
rilla elusiveness, difficult terrain, and shortages of time and manpower 
often made encirclements impossible. He therefore offered the surprise 
attack as a secondary tactic. Achieving surprise against wary guerrillas 
was admittedly difficult, and Volckmann advocated using small parties 
of scouts and native guides to locate and shadow the enemy, with the 
remainder of the column moving up rapidly, usually at night, to launch 
a surprise dawn assault. If possible, a single or double envelopment 
would be used, as the goal was to destroy the guerrillas, not to disperse 
them or to capture ground. Since irregulars usually lacked supporting 
weapons, Volckmann directed the attacker to close with the enemy 
more rapidly than would be customary against regular forces in con¬ 
ventional combat. 23 

Should any guerrillas escape from either an encirclement or an 
attack, FM 31-20 called for pursuit, the third form of offensive opera¬ 
tions. Antiguerrilla formations and small units of regulars linked by 
radio to mobile reserves and aerial and artillery support were to hound 
the guerrillas relentlessly. Contact, once gained, was never to be lost, 
until such time as the guerrillas had been run to earth. Only in this 
manner could the Army achieve the ultimate destruction of an irregular 
opponent. 24 

Having presented a broad operational framework and suggested 
some specific techniques, Volckmann offered some cautionary advice. 
He warned that guerrillas often scavenged supplies from their enemies, 
and he urged soldiers to police their camps and to exercise strict sup¬ 
ply discipline to prevent materiel from falling into guerrilla hands. He 
also alerted commanders about the unusual morale problems associated 
with guerrilla warfare. Counterguerrilla service was especially enervat¬ 
ing because it involved placing small detachments of soldiers in rela¬ 
tively isolated locations for prolonged periods amid a population with 
whom the soldiers could neither readily communicate nor fully trust. 
Frustrated by their inability to come to grips with an elusive opponent 


141 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


and discouraged by the seemingly endless routine of garrison duty and 
fruitless patrols, soldiers might become abusive toward civilians or lose 
the aggressive, offensive edge called for by doctrine. To avoid these 
pitfalls, Volckmann urged commanders to inculcate strong leadership 
traits among their junior leaders and to initiate troop indoctrination 
programs. He also recommended that commanders adopt policies that 
kept troops in one location long enough for the soldiers to operate with 
intelligence, skill, and confidence. 2 " 

Operations Against Guerrilla Forces represented a major mile¬ 
stone in the evolution of U.S. Army doctrine. By blending traditional 
American concepts with German military practices, World War II 
lessons, and some fresh insights, the manual filled an important gap 
in official doctrinal literature. Although it made no reference to Mao 
Tse-tung or the rising tide of third world insurgencies in which U.S. 
Army personnel were increasingly engaged, FM 31-20 (1951) related 
enduring principles relevant to a wide range of counterguerrilla situ¬ 
ations. Among the manual’s most salient concepts were its emphasis 
on flexibility, adaptability, mobility, security, and surprise; its recog¬ 
nition that prevention and early action were better than a massive, but 
belated, military response; and its call for careful politico-military 
planning and coordination. Although it did not elaborate on exactly 
how one could achieve the complicated integration of political and 
military measures, the thrust of this strategy was sound, as was the 
doctrine’s central goal of cutting the guerrilla off both physically and 
spiritually from all sources of assistance. Together with the opera¬ 
tional, tactical, and training advice contained in its pages, the manual 
gave officers a solid basis on which to craft situation-specific coun¬ 
terguerrilla campaigns. 

The Evolution of Army Doctrinal Literature, 1951-1958 

FM 31-20’s precepts were widely disseminated during the early 
1950s, thanks largely to the Korean War. Not only had the Army dis¬ 
tributed a pre-publication version of the manual (ST 31-20-1) in late 
1950, but it immediately followed up the publication of the manual in 
February 1951 by printing a digested version of the doctrine in Officer s 
Call , an official publication that brought important subjects to the 
attention of the officer corps. The extensive circulation of several stud¬ 
ies on German counterguerrilla methods during World War II—studies 
that Volckmann had used in preparing the manual—reinforced the new 
doctrine, as did the publication of a number of articles examining post- 
1940 guerrilla conflicts. 26 


142 




The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


While the publication ol FM 31—20 in 1951 represented both the 
first and most important step by the Army in the field of irregular war¬ 
fare doctrine, it was not the final step. Although much of the urgency 
behind the dissemination of counterguerrilla doctrine faded after the 
conclusion ol the Korean War, third world instability and the potential 
threat ol a war with the Soviet Union mandated continued interest, 
albeit at a lower level of intensity. 

The lirst manual to discuss issues related to counterguerrilla 
warfare after the publication of FM 31-20 (1951) was FM 31-21, 
Organization and Conduct of Guerrilla Warfare. Published eight 
months alter FM 31—20, FM 31—21 was Volckmann’s companion piece 
to the counterguerrilla manual. Based like its counterpart on World War 
II experience, FM 31-21 described the nature, organization, and meth¬ 
ods of guerrilla warfare with an eye toward the use of such techniques 
by U.S. forces during a conventional war. Though the manual did not 
prescribe counterguerrilla tactics, it served as a useful adjunct to coun¬ 
terinsurgent planners, lor whom understanding the enemy was the first 
step toward defeating him. 

Of equal interest to soldiers charged with counterguerrilla duties 
was a formal “change” made by the Department of the Army in July 
1952 to the 1949 edition of FM 100-5. 2 The update, which represented 
the first modification to the Army’s basic combat manual since the 
outbreak of the Korean War, added a new section on “Security Against 
Airborne Attack, Guerrilla Action, and Infiltration.” The ten-page 
addendum reflected the Army’s growing concern over the threat that 
guerrillas and partisans posed to Army rear areas during a conventional 
war. It focused on ways to protect rear areas without having to divert 
too many combat forces from the battlefront. Among the measures 
recommended were the establishment of comprehensive warning and 
communications systems, the use of convoys, air and ground patrols, 
and guards to keep lines of communications open, and the creation of 
self-defending service and supply installations reinforced, when neces¬ 
sary, by mobile reaction forces. Although largely defensive in nature, 
the addendum also elevated into FM 100-5 certain key concepts from 
FM 31-20 concerning the nature of guerrilla and counterguerrilla 
action. Included among these were the necessity of good intelligence 
and the utility of local civilians in obtaining it; the importance of 
maintaining continuity in command, policy, and personnel; the value of 
security, mobility, and surprise; the use of encirclement tactics aided by 
airborne or heliborne troops; the merits of forming special antiguerrilla 
units; and the necessity of isolating guerrillas from the civilian popu¬ 
lation. While this last point could be achieved partly through military 


143 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


and security measures, “more important,” the insert explained, “is the 
necessity for winning the support of the indigenous population away 
from the guerrillas and infiltrators. This can best be accomplished by 
the establishment of cooperation and good will between the civil popu¬ 
lation and the military forces. . . . Adherence to basic military govern¬ 
ment principles will do much toward diverting the civil population from 
activities designed to prevent the maintenance of good order and public 
safety. Propaganda plays an important part in winning the good will 
and trust of the local populace.” 2 " 

By incorporating some of the principles contained in FM 31-20 
into FM 100-5—one of the Army’s most widely read manuals—the 
Department of the Army further ensured their dissemination through¬ 
out the force as a whole. Still, the Army believed that doctrinal gaps 
remained, not so much in terms of the overall concept of counterir¬ 
regular warfare, but in the specifics of rear area defense. Consequently, 
in 1953 the Army published FM 31-15, Operations Against Airborne 
Attack, Guerrilla Action, and Infiltration. Designed to flesh out the 
general concepts expressed in the 1952 change to FM 100-5, FM 
31-15 focused on the organizational and operational details involved 
in orchestrating the defense of a rear area during a conventional war. 
Its coverage of counterguerrilla warfare was truncated and incomplete, 
not because the subject was unimportant, but because counterirregular 
operations had already been covered in FM 31-20. FM 31-15 was thus 
not meant to replace FM 31-20, but rather to supplement it, and the 
new manual frequently referred readers to FM 31-20 and FM 31-21 
for more specific information about guerrilla and counterguerrilla war¬ 
fare. Nevertheless, the 1953 manual was careful to reiterate many of 
the themes contained in earlier doctrine. It repeatedly noted the impor¬ 
tant role the population played in supporting enemy irregulars and the 
necessity of severing this relationship through a combination of mili¬ 
tary, police, intelligence, psychological, resource-control, and political 
measures. Thus FM 31-15 stated that “the scope of rear area defense 
involves consideration of matters that are not purely military in nature, 
but may exert tremendous influence on the military operations to be 
conducted,” and it repeated FM 31-20’s call for the careful coordina¬ 
tion of the “purely military effort with the political, administrative, and 
economic aspects of the over-all plan.” “Failure to recognize and apply 
necessary nonmilitary measures,” the manual continued, “may render 
military operations ineffective, regardless of how well these operations 
are planned and conducted.” 29 

Despite these warnings, FM 31-15 did not discuss the nonmilitary 
aspects of rear area security in detail, partly because these were covered 


144 




The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


to an extent in the Army s civil affairs manuals and partly because the 
Army believed that the formulation ol policies pertaining to the inter¬ 
nal affairs of foreign countries was beyond its bailiwick. Though the 
manual endorsed the close coordination of political and military mea¬ 
sures, it specifically stated that "‘the conduct of political and economic 
warfare is not a function ol the armed forces,” and it limited the Army’s 
participation in the execution of such programs to “auxiliary action.” 
Apparently, the Army felt uncomfortable with such a flat renunciation 
of responsibility because the following year it changed the wording 
to state that the conduct of political and economic warfare was not a 
“ primary ” function of the armed forces, thereby opening the door to its 
participation in such matters. 30 

No sooner had the Army published FM 31—15 than it began again 
revising FM 100—5, Field Service Regulations, Operations. The revi¬ 
sion had two goals: to incorporate the lessons of the Korean conflict 
and to help prepare the Army for the defense of Western Europe against 
a Soviet invasion, a mission that had evolved in earnest only after the 
publication of the last full edition of FM 100-5 in 1949. As part of 
this effort, the Army commissioned six German officers led by Franz 
Haider, the former chief of the German General Staff, to critique the 
1949 edition of FM 100-5 in light of their experience fighting the 
Russians. Haider’s report, which was distributed to Army doctrine writ¬ 
ers in the spring of 1953, concluded that 

as an army manual, FM 100-5, just as did our own pre-war service regula¬ 
tions, overlooks the presence of the civilian population inhabiting the combat 
area. . . . However, the population of an area touched by war, whether friendly 
or hostile, will frequently confront not only the higher command but also 
the combat forces with problems which affect even tactics and which must 
not find them unprepared. Aside from such hindrances as the mass flight of 
civilians, problems of supply, and similar considerations, the main problem 
is that of coping with partisan warfare. Today a service manual must cover 
this aspect fully. 31 

In the opinion of the German commentators, the 1949 version of 
FM 100-5 fell short in this regard, so much so that they took the trouble 
of writing an entirely new partisan warfare section that they recom¬ 
mended be included in FM 100-5. In actuality, the Haider report had no 
influence over the treatment of irregular warfare in the new edition of 
FM 100-5, not because the Army did not value the Germans’ opinions, 
but because it had already incorporated them into official doctrine, 
both in FM 31-20 (1951), and in the 1952 change to FM 100-5, neither 
of which had been provided to the German analysts. The report did. 


145 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


however, serve as additional confirmation of the direction in which the 
Army was already moving, as demonstrated by the remarkable similar¬ 
ity between the ideas expressed by Haider’s group and those that had 
already been incorporated into U.S. doctrine based on the Army’s previ¬ 
ous study of the German experience. 32 

The new edition of FM 100-5 that appeared in 1954 thus broke no 
new ground with regard to antiguerrilla warfare. Central to its approach 
was the notion that 

Guerrilla forces cannot exist without civilian support. Consequently, every 
effort should be made to prevent them from receiving this support. Such an 
effort consists of physically isolating guerrilla forces from each other and both 
physically and psychologically separating them from the civilian population. 
This requires gaining and maintaining the support of the indigenous popula¬ 
tion. This can best be accomplished by the establishment of goodwill between 
the civil population and the military forces; and rewards for friendly assistance, 
and punishment for collaboration with guerrillas. In those instances where 
control of the indigenous government is vested in the commander adherence 
to principles of good military government will do much toward accomplish¬ 
ing the above. Propaganda, followed by implementation of promises, plays an 
important part in winning the goodwill and trust of the local populace. 33 

For the most part, the manual limited its coverage of irregular war¬ 
fare to broad, yet important, statements of principle, referring its read¬ 
ers to FMs 31-20 (1951), 31-21 (1951), and 31-15 (1953) for details. 
It did, however, include several additional points that touched, albeit 
indirectly, on the issue of counterguerrilla operations. Among these 
were its assertion that the doctrines, tactics, and techniques contained 
in its pages were merely guidelines that commanders were expected to 
modify as circumstances warranted, and its recognition that, since “war 
is a political act,” military means and objectives had to be tailored to 
meet political ends. Both of these points, if taken to heart, had signifi¬ 
cant implications for counterguerrilla and pacification operations. 34 

Following the publication of FM 100-5 in 1954, the Army moved 
to revise many of its other manuals during the mid-1950s. In 1955 
it updated the 1949 edition of FM 33-5, Psychological Warfare 
Operations. The new edition mentioned counterguerrilla operations 
only briefly and was bereft of information on Communist insurgent 
movements, a significant failing. On the other hand, it was the first 
Army psychological warfare (psywar) manual to include a discussion 
of consolidation psychological warfare, that branch of the persuasive 
arts directed toward friendly and occupied populations. The manual 
recognized the advantages of providing food, shelter, and economic 
rehabilitation to help win public support but also warned against mak- 


146 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


ing promises that one could not keep. It understood the psychological 
importance ol military success and personal security, noting that civil¬ 
ians who believed that the enemy might return would be reluctant to 
cooperate with friendly forces in fear of retaliation, while those who 
were convinced that their security was assured would be more willing 
to cooperate with the Army. 35 

01 potentially greater import for counterinsurgency was FM 27- 
10, The Law of Land Warfare , published in 1956. This manual officially 
incorporated the results of the 1949 Geneva Convention into Army 
doctrine. Yet, other than extending some of the protections afforded to 
civilians and prisoners in international conflicts to conflicts “not of an 
international character,” the new rules changed very little with regard to 
American doctrine. Hostage taking, long accepted in Army regulations, 
was now banned, and the manual repeated traditional proscriptions 
against cruelty, torture, pillage, and personal misconduct. 36 The manual 
frowned on devastation, unless there was “some reasonably close con¬ 
nection between the destruction of property and the overcoming of the 
enemy’s army,” a caveat that counterinsurgents could use to justify the 
destruction of food and shelter in guerrilla-dominated areas. 37 It also 
repeated international law’s long-standing refusal to accord captured 
guerrillas prisoner-of-war status unless they were organized under 
a responsible command, wore distinctive insignia, bore their arms 
openly, and conducted themselves in accordance with the laws of war. 
Individuals who violated these rules by concealing their weapons or 
otherwise masking their identity as combatants could be put on trial 
and punished, possibly by death. Finally, FM 27-10 (1956) noted that 
the Geneva Convention permitted armed forces to “undertake total or 
partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or 
imperative military reasons so demanded,” a precept that sanctioned the 
counterinsurgent tactic of population removal. s 

Having set the legal parameters under which U.S. soldiers would 
conduct counterguerrilla and pacification operations, the Army pro¬ 
ceeded to update its doctrine governing its relationship with foreign 
and occupied populations—the first such revision since 1947. Like 
most Army manuals, FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Military Government 
Operations (1957), had a distinctly conventional focus, yet it was pro¬ 
foundly relevant for counterguerrilla warfare because the Army would 
apply the manual’s principles to all of the Army’s dealings with civilian 
populations, regardless of the nature of the conflict. Moreover, since 
a major war with the Soviet Union might involve the occupation of 
enemy territory, American civil affairs planners were well aware that 
they needed to be prepared to neutralize the lingering vestiges of the 


147 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Communist political, military, and social apparatus—problems akin 
to those that would materialize in a counterinsurgency situation not 
associated with a major war. Consequently, the 1957 edition of FM 
41-10 became the first civil affairs and military government manual to 
include a section specifically devoted to civil affairs’ role in counter¬ 
guerrilla warfare. 30 

Like its predecessors, FM 41-10 (1957) prescribed a blend of prag¬ 
matic and humanitarian measures. Believing that guerrillas flourished 
under conditions of disorder and socioeconomic hardship, the manual 
called for the early restoration of law, order, and stability through the 
establishment of police and judicial services, the resumption of local 
government, the revitalization of economic and agricultural produc¬ 
tion, and the provision of humanitarian relief. Mobile clinics would 
treat the sick and demonstrate child care and sanitation techniques, 
military engineers would improve public infrastructures, and agricul¬ 
tural specialists would test soils and offer advice on animal husbandry. 
Such projects would be carefully planned and closely coordinated with 
local officials to ensure that they would meet the genuine needs and 
desires of the local population. Meanwhile, information, education, and 
propaganda programs would provide maximum publicity for these and 
other initiatives to ensure that the policies were understood and that the 
government received credit for its efforts. Finally, commanders were 
to encourage their subordinates to respect local beliefs and customs, 
to cultivate personal relationships with the population, and to exhibit 
proper behavior at all times to win public support for the government 
and the Army. 40 

While benevolence was by far the preferred policy, the manual 
called for sterner measures should the population respond to these 
overtures with continued resistance. Punishments were to be propor¬ 
tional to the offense, explained to the population, and crafted so as to 
minimize undue injury to innocent parties. Among the Army’s more 
punitive weapons were censorship, population registration, restrictions 
on the movement of people and goods, licensing, fines, imprisonment, 
and reparations. Like FM 31-20 (1951), the manual deemed strict 
controls over the distribution of food, clothing, and medicines to be 
especially important in counterguerrilla warfare. 

Although coercion had an important, if distasteful, role to play, 
FM 41-10 echoed other manuals in recognizing that the military had 
an obligation to protect the population from guerrilla coercion and 
exploitation. It likewise reiterated Army doctrine with respect to the use 
of natives in police, administrative, self-defense, reconnaissance, and 
intelligence capacities. On the other hand, while the manual declared 


148 



The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


that the military had the right to relocate civilians, it generally discour¬ 
aged such actions. Forced evacuations disturbed social order; imposed 
significant burdens on the government for the transportation, resettle¬ 
ment, and care of the affected populations; and created resentment that 
was readily exploited by the enemy’s propaganda machine. 41 

FM 41-10’s uneasiness concerning population relocation high¬ 
lighted an ambiguous doctrinal area. Although both the Axis powers 
and several Western nations, including the United States, had relo¬ 
cated populations during past counterguerrilla operations, Americans 
sometimes found such measures distasteful. Recent experiences in 
Korea and Greece, where removal schemes had proved effective but 
enormously disruptive and expensive, probably gave Americans further 
pause. Thus, while removal remained in the Army’s official doctrinal 
repertoire during the 1950s, it was always regarded as merely one tool 
among many, and one that had to be handled carefully at that. Not 
until the end of the decade, when recent French and British experience 
seemed to demonstrate the virtues of relocation, did American writers 
begin to warm noticeably toward this technique. 42 

Although FM 41-10’s consideration of guerrilla warfare was brief, 
the manual complemented earlier manuals that had focused more exclu¬ 
sively on the military aspects of counterinsurgency. Unfortunately, by the 
time it was published several changes had occurred that seriously eroded 
counterinsurgency’s place in Army doctrine. The decline had begun in 
1954, when Army Field Forces directed that doctrinal responsibility 
for counterguerrilla warfare be shifted from the Infantry School at Fort 
Benning, where Volckmann had written the doctrine, to the Psychological 
Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It further ordered that FM 
31-20 and FM 31-21 be merged into a single manual covering both 
guerrilla and counterguerrilla warfare. The transfer from Benning to 
Bragg was well intentioned and made a certain amount of sense. The 
Psychological Warfare Center was responsible for both psychological 
warfare and the Army’s budding Special Forces organization, which was 
charged with conducting guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. Since 
counterguerrilla warfare required some familiarity with both psychologi¬ 
cal and guerrilla warfare activities, Army Field Forces reckoned that Fort 
Bragg was the logical place to focus all of the Army’s unconventional 
warfare endeavors. Besides, during the early 1950s the special warfare 
community, under the leadership of chief of Psychological Warfare Brig. 
Gen. Robert A. McClure, had been one of the leading proponents within 
the Army for studying counterguerrilla warfare. 

There were, however, several countervailing factors. To begin 
with, the failure of enemy irregulars to play a decisive role in the 


149 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


now concluded Korean War had taken some of the urgency out of the 
Army’s interest in counterguerrilla warfare. This decline in interest 
was noticeable not only in the Army as a whole, but in the special 
warfare community as well, which, after McClure’s departure for 
another assignment in 1954, ranked counterguerrilla and consolida¬ 
tion psychological warfare at the very bottom of its list of priorities for 
unconventional warfare research. Indeed, the Psychological Warfare 
Center argued vigorously against Army Field Forces’ decision to give 
it doctrinal responsibility for counterinsurgency on the grounds that 
“the tactics, doctrine and the conduct of anti-guerrilla operations is 
not the responsibility or mission of special forces.” Army Field Forces 
overruled the objection, however, and counterinsurgency became the 
unwanted stepchild of the special warfare community. 43 

The inevitable result of this unhappy arrangement was that coun¬ 
terinsurgency doctrine suffered a slow death at the hands of its men¬ 
tors at Fort Bragg, who gave little more than lip service to it during 
the remainder of the decade. The first step in this process occurred in 
1955 when, at the direction of Army Field Forces, the Psychological 
Warfare Center released two new guerrilla warfare manuals. The first, 
U.S. Army Special Forces Group (Airborne), bore the designation FM 
31-20 but differed dramatically from the FM 31-20 of 1951 in that 
it was devoted exclusively to the tactics and techniques of American- 
sponsored guerrilla warfare. The second manual, Guerrilla Warfare , 
merged the two original Volckmann manuals of 1951— Operations 
Against Guerrilla Forces (FM 31-20) and Organization and Conduct 
of Guerrilla Warfare (FM 31-21)—into a single volume, designated 
FM 31-21. 44 

The intellectual thrust of the new FM 31-21 differed little from 
its 1951 progenitors. It reiterated most of the themes and much of the 
language of the earlier manuals, albeit in a reorganized and less verbose 
fashion. The 1955 manual was also a bit more reticent about employing 
stern tactics, as it shunned hostage taking and reprisals and dropped 
the word harsh from its description of acceptable control measures. 
Technology also played a somewhat greater role in the new doctrine, as 
FM 31-21 (1955) described small-unit heliborne operations that fore¬ 
shadowed the “eagle flight” technique employed by American forces a 
decade later in Vietnam. 45 

Yet not all of the changes were positive, for in the process of distill¬ 
ing two manuals into one, the writers at Fort Bragg deleted some valu¬ 
able information contained in the original FM 31-20. Gone were most 
of the historical examples as well as some of the useful insights, like 
the original manual’s precautionary advice for soldiers to police their 


150 




The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


bivouacs to prevent guerrillas from salvaging supplies. The new manual 
cui tailed much ol its predecessor’s discussion about the employment of 
artillery, armor, close air support, and special antiguerrilla units, and 
even gave less attention to the role of the population. Moreover, while 
the authors ol Guerrilla Warfare had preserved many of the principles 
found in FM 31—20 (1951), in their quest to consolidate the Volckmann 
manuals they eliminated much of the explanatory material that had 
given these principles meaning. The result was a doctrinal product that, 
while more succinct, was less robust. 

Matters were soon to become worse, however, for in 1958, the 
Army implemented a second consolidation that virtually eliminated 
counterguerrilla theory from U.S. Army doctrine altogether. The con¬ 
solidation merged the 1955 versions of FM 31-20 and FM 31-21 into 
a single manual—FM 31-21, Guerrilla Warfare and Special Forces 
Operations. This new manual focused exclusively on guerrilla warfare 
and eliminated entirely the 1955 edition’s counterguerrilla section. In 
a single stroke, the Army lost its most important source of informa¬ 
tion on counterguerrilla warfare. True, FM 31-15, Operations Against 
Airborne Attack, Guerrilla Action, and Infiltration (1953), remained in 
force, while FM 100-5 (1954), FM 41-10 (1957), and a few branch- 
level manuals contained small counterguerrilla sections. But the treat¬ 
ment of counterguerrilla warfare in these manuals was incomplete, in 
part because they had been written with the assumption that readers 
could always turn to either the original FM 31-20 (1951) or FM 31-21 
(1955) for background. Indeed, they explicitly instructed their readers 
to do so. After 1958, however, detailed doctrine for counterguerrilla 
operations no longer existed in the family of Army manuals, leaving 
manuals like FMs 31-15 and 100-5 adrift, without the intellectual and 
conceptual moorings necessary for the formulation of a well-grounded 
understanding of the principal aspects of counterguerrilla warfare. 
Thus, after promising beginnings in 1951, by decade’s end counterin¬ 
surgency doctrine had fallen into disarray. 41 ’ 

Counterinsurgency in the Educational and Training Systems 

While manuals were the primary source of doctrine, soldiers also 
received exposure to counterinsurgency concepts in the classroom and 
on the training field. In 1948 the U.S. Army Command and General 
Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, had become the 
first Army school after World War II to cover counterguerrilla warfare. 
The coverage was infinitesimal, consisting of just two pages out of a 
lecture devoted to the employment of partisans by U.S. forces during a 


151 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


conventional war. The first real examination of counterguerrilla opera¬ 
tions occurred at the Infantry School, which introduced the subject, 
together with ST 31-20-1, in the fall of 1950 in reaction to the Korean 
War. Thereafter, students enrolled in the infantry officer’s advanced 
course at Fort Benning received three hours of antiguerrilla warfare 
instruction and one hour on the employment of friendly guerrillas. 
Other institutions, including the Command and General Staff College 
and the Armor, Engineer, Transportation, and Army General schools, 
offered similar courses tailored to their particular specialties. 4 

Attention to counterguerrilla warfare quickly faded after the 
Korean War. The Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, 
which had virtually ignored the subject even during the height of the 
war, continued to neglect it, preferring to devote what little time the 
college spent on irregular conflict to the employment of friendly par¬ 
tisans in Eastern Europe. The Command and General Staff College 
likewise refocused its partisan operations course exclusively on guer¬ 
rilla, as opposed to counterguerrilla, warfare. Most other Army schools 
omitted the subject entirely. Even the Infantry School cut its coverage 
of counterguerrilla warfare in half after 195 5 A 

The disappearance of counterguerrilla studies from most military 
curriculums during the second half of the 1950s, when coupled with 
the subject’s declining fortunes in Army manuals, meant that the num¬ 
ber of officers exposed to the subject steadily diminished after 1955. 
This is not to say, however, that the educational system completely 
ignored counterinsurgency issues. To begin with, after 1954 all Reserve 
Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadets received a brief introduction 
to counterguerrilla warfare through ROTC manual 145-60, Small Unit 
Tactics, Including Communications A Moreover, there were many sub¬ 
jects taught in Army schools that were applicable in varying degrees to 
a counterinsurgency environment. Among these were civil affairs and 
military government, refugee control, military law and the laws of war, 
mountain and jungle warfare, small-unit infantry tactics, riot control, 
Special Forces operations, consolidation psychological warfare, and rear 
area defense, not to mention basic intelligence, reconnaissance, and staff 
techniques. Courses in civil affairs and rear area defense, as taught at the 
Civil Affairs and Provost Marshal General’s schools at Camp Gordon, 
Georgia, and the Adjutant General’s School at Camp Lee, Virginia, 
were particularly relevant, especially since these courses continued to 
be based on the original series of counterguerrilla works of 1950-1952, 
thereby perpetuating some concepts that had faded from subsequent 
doctrinal works. Finally, during the latter half of the 1950s, a new course 
of instruction began to emerge, most notably at the Command and 


152 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


General Staff College, on situations short of war,” a subject that was 
closely related to counterguerrilla and pacification issues. 50 

In addition to developing and disseminating course material, 
the Army education system encouraged the examination of doctrine 
through two other media—articles in the Army’s professional jour¬ 
nals and student papers. Between 1950 and 1960, Army professional 
journals published over forty articles that dealt to some degree with 
subjects related to counterguerrilla warfare and pacification. These 
articles, some of which were written by school instructors, represented 
a blend ol historical studies, operational accounts, commentaries, and 
synopses of current doctrine which, taken collectively, furthered the 
dissemination of counterguerrilla doctrine to the Army as a whole. 

Student papers received significantly less dissemination but pro¬ 
vided valuable insights into the state of Army thinking, especially since 
some of them were explicitly written for the purpose of evaluating doc¬ 
trine in response to school initiatives. Although World War II examples 
remained of enduring interest to students throughout the 1950s, by mid¬ 
decade student papers increasingly made reference to Maoist concepts 
and more contemporary foreign experiences, a trend that indicated 
that at least some officers were delving beyond the initial sources of 
American doctrine to examine new concepts.’ 1 

For the most part, the articles and student essays written by offi¬ 
cers during the 1950s endorsed the principles expressed in FM 31-20 
(1951) and its successors, concluding as had CGSC instructor and 
counterguerrilla veteran Lt. Col. John Beebe, that U.S. Army doctrine 
was “sound and adequate.” Themes that received special attention 
included the importance of comprehensive politico-military planning 
and the necessity for separating the guerrillas from the population 
through a mixture of military action, propaganda, restrictive measures, 
and progressive social, political, and economic programs. Continuous 
offensive action remained the key to the military side of the equation, 
but nearly every writer during the 1950s appreciated the importance of 
nonmilitary factors in counterinsurgency operations. When disagree¬ 
ments emerged, they usually occurred over such topics as the wisdom 
of creating special counterinsurgency units or the relative merits of 
saturation patrolling versus large-scale encirclement operations. More 
pointedly, while most authors endorsed the general outline of existing 
doctrine, they fretted that it was not well understood within the officer 
corps as a whole, given the limited amount of time devoted to counter¬ 
guerrilla subjects in the Army’s pedagogical system.’ 2 

Officers who were dissatisfied with the amount of attention allo¬ 
cated to counterguerrilla subjects in Army classrooms were likewise 


153 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



U.S. Army cavalrymen playing the role of mounted guerrillas 
during a counterguerrilla training exercise 


critical of the scant attention devoted to these areas in training. The 
Army training system had virtually ignored counterguerrilla warfare 
during the late 1940s. The seriousness of this omission was demon¬ 
strated in March 1950, when the 3d Infantry Division participated in a 
Caribbean training exercise that included an “enemy” guerrilla force. 
Organized by an OSS veteran, the “guerrillas” consisted of Puerto 
Rican soldiers from the U.S. 65th Infantry, and a network of civilian 
spies. The exercise proved somewhat embarrassing for the 3d Infantry 
Division after the insurgents “killed” the division’s entire command 
element, “blew up” supply depots, and “ambushed” several troop col¬ 
umns, all without loss to themselves. The division protested the simu¬ 
lation as unfair, but several months later, both it and the 65th Infantry 
were performing counterguerrilla duty in Korea against an opponent 
who was deaf to cries of foul play." 3 

By the fall of 1950 Communist guerrillas had become sufficiently 
bothersome to U.S. forces in Korea that the Army ordered that greater 
attention be paid to antiguerrilla warfare throughout the training sys¬ 
tem. Indeed, the Korean experience and the threat that it would be 
repeated in any war with the Soviet Union was sufficient to persuade 
the Army to continue providing a modicum of counterguerrilla train¬ 
ing throughout the remainder of the decade. Exposure to counter¬ 
guerrilla warfare began in basic training, as all Army recruits during 
the 1950s received four hours of antiguerrilla instruction. Training 


154 




The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


legislations governing rifle companies required that antiguerrilla 
patrolling situations be included in advanced individual training for 
infantrymen, while in 1956 the Army published guidelines for an 
eight-hour block of anti-infiltration and antiguerrilla instruction as 
part of unit-level training. Throughout the decade the Army repeatedly 
directed commanders to integrate counterguerrilla subjects into all 
phases of training and instruction, including field exercises. Special 
Forces or other Army personnel sometimes played the role of hostile 
guerrillas in these exercises, while manuals and private publications 
by interested officers offered advice on how counterguerrilla training 
could best be accomplished. Most of this training revolved around 
individual soldier skills and defensive measures, such as the protection 
of march columns, convoys, bivouacs, and installations—subjects that 
were applicable to all forms of irregular combat but which reflected 
the Army’s particular preoccupation with rear area security during a 
conventional conflict. Offensive antiguerrilla operations, when includ¬ 
ed in training, were almost always restricted to squad-, platoon-, and 
company-level patrols, raids, and ambushes. 54 

Other areas of training that occasionally touched on subjects related 
to irregular warfare and pacification included civil affairs, “population 
control,” and Ranger training. Of these, Ranger training was particu¬ 
larly important. Senior Army leaders were enamored with the Ranger 
concept during the 1950s, and, after the abortive experiment with 
Ranger units during the early stages of the Korean War, the Department 
of the Army directed that all newly commissioned Regular Army infan¬ 
try, armor, artillery, engineer, military police, and signal corps officers 
receive either Ranger or airborne training. The five- to seven-week 
course at Fort Benning focused on individual combat and survival 
skills, physical conditioning, fieldcraft, mountain, jungle, swamp, and 
amphibious operations, patrolling, and small-unit tactics—exactly the 
type of knowledge that was at a premium in counterguerrilla warfare. 
The Army’s goal was to have at least one Ranger-trained officer in each 
rifle company and one Ranger-qualified noncommissioned officer in 
each rifle platoon who would then spread their knowledge throughout 
the infantry force. The effort proved so popular that several divisions 
began Ranger training for entire units, and in 1957 the Army pub¬ 
lished FM 21-50, Ranger Training , to help commanders establish such 
courses. Not only was the manual devoted to subjects that were useful 
in combating guerrillas, like ambush and counterambush techniques, 
but it also contained a brief concept for counterguerrilla operations. 
According to this concept, a liberal use of troop-carrying aircraft and 
helicopters would permit a relatively small number of highly trained 


155 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



“Guerrillas ” ambush an unsuspecting soldier during a training exercise. 


infantrymen to control large areas through airmobile reconnaissance, 
strike, and patrol actions. 5 ' 

A final genre of training applicable to irregular warfare was night 
combat. The basic infantry officers course at Fort Benning included 
thirty hours of training in nighttime guerrilla and counterguerrilla 
operations, while Army regulations required that at least one-third of 
all applicatory stages of tactical and movement training be conducted at 
night. Such an edict, if obeyed, would have greatly improved the ability 
of U.S. soldiers to operate during the guerrillas’ favorite time of day. 
Unfortunately, the regulation was not always observed because com¬ 
manders considered night training difficult and burdensome. 56 

The Army’s failure to train aggressively at night illustrates the 
difficulty of evaluating the state of counterguerrilla training during 
the 1950s. Unlike night training that, in theory at least, was manda¬ 
tory, most counterguerrilla training was optional, to be integrated into 
a unit’s normal training regimen at the discretion of the commander. 
Consequently, proficiency varied widely from unit to unit. Given the 
diminishing attention devoted to counterguerrilla subjects in Army 
manuals and schools during the mid-1950s, the Army’s repeated exhor¬ 
tations that counterguerrilla subjects be treated as a normal part of train¬ 
ing were not likely taken to heart during the second half of the decade. 
Moreover, the Army sent out conflicting signals. While it encouraged 
the integration of irregular warfare into exercises, it cautioned that 
“guerrilla operations must be carefully planned and controlled in order 


156 




The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


to prevent undue interference with the planned progress of the maneu¬ 
ver and the accomplishment of other maneuver objectives.” Concerns 
over safety and controllability similarly limited the involvement of 
civilians in exercises, as well as the wearing of civilian clothing by the 
“guerrillas," restrictions that further compromised the realism of Army 
maneuvers. The result was that many counterguerrilla exercises were of 
limited value, consisting largely of road-bound patrols and disappoint¬ 
ing sweeps.' 7 

This was not, however, universally the case. For example, dur¬ 
ing Exercise Devilstrike in Germany in 1959, an infantry battalion 
augmented by scout and psychological warfare teams successfully 
established a system of area control in which each of its companies 
extensively patrolled an assigned sector while an airmobile strike force 
waited in reserve to exploit potential contacts. Meanwhile, on the other 
side of the globe, the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division conducted 
what was perhaps the Army’s most sustained program of counterguer¬ 
rilla training. Beginning in 1956, the division, which was earmarked for 
contingency operations in Asia where potential adversaries were likely 
to resort to irregular warfare, required all its personnel to cycle through 
the division’s Jungle and Guerrilla Warfare Center for a minimum of 
five and a half days per year. Such exercises, together with the general 
interest in Ranger training, ensured that at least some soldiers and units 
would gain proficiency in the type of individual and small-unit skills 
required in a counterguerrilla environment. N 

The Resurgence of Counterinsurgency Doctrine , 1958-1960 

One factor that contributed to the Army’s inattention to irregular 
warfare was its preoccupation with nuclear weapons. By the early 1950s 
a debate was raging within the Army as to how it should adjust to the 
nuclear age. Nuclear weapons made their first appearance in the Army’s 
basic combat manual, FM 100-5, in 1954, nine years after the devel¬ 
opment of the atomic bomb. The following year, the Army published 
its first manual devoted exclusively to the use of nuclear devices in 
combat—FM 100-31, Tactical Use of Atomic Weapons —and initiated a 
major overhaul of its educational system. At the Command and General 
Staff College, nuclear combat became the standard model for future war¬ 
fare while nonnuclear situations were depicted as deviations from that 
norm. By 1956 Fort Leavenworth was devoting approximately 50 percent 
of its curriculum to nuclear warfare scenarios, and the strain of having to 
cover both nuclear and conventional combat without extending the length 
of the course left little time for the study of unconventional warfare. 


157 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Moreover, between 1956 and 1958, the Army completely restructured 
its combat divisions to create new formations—called “pentomic” divi¬ 
sions—specifically tailored for nuclear warfare conditions. Under such 
circumstances, the Army had neither the time nor the intellectual energy 
to devote to counterguerrilla issues. 59 

Nor could it readily justify such a diversion given the policies of 
Truman’s successor in the White House, retired General of the Army 
Dwight D. Eisenhower. Convinced that the United States could not 
afford to match the Soviet Union’s massive conventional forces and that 
nuclear weapons had made such forces virtually obsolete in any case, 
the Eisenhower administration (1953-1961) sharply limited resources 
for ground combat forces. Eisenhower was equally outspoken in his 
determination not to embroil U.S. ground forces in small wars or 
insurgencies on the grounds that such conflicts were difficult to win 
and placed undue burdens on American resources. Better to arm and 
train our allies to fight for themselves under the general protection 
of America’s nuclear umbrella than to commit U.S. ground forces to 
secure them from local Communist aggression. Such a policy gave the 
Army little incentive to devote its already scarce resources to preparing 
for third world conflicts. Rather, the Army’s neglect of counterinsur¬ 
gency during most of the Eisenhower years was in full consonance with 
U.S. national security policy. 60 

Not everyone, however, was happy with Eisenhower’s policies. 
Opposition arose both from within the Army, which felt it suffered 
unduly from the president’s nuclear orientation, and from the grow¬ 
ing community of national security strategists. In 1957 two leading 
civilian theorists, Robert Osgood and Henry Kissinger, published 
books criticizing the Eisenhower administration’s policy of massive 
retaliation, which they regarded as dangerous, inflexible, and ultimately 
unbelievable as a deterrent to local conflicts. They argued the United 
States needed to develop the political and military capability to conduct 
limited wars below the threshold of an all-out nuclear confrontation. 
Although limited war theory eventually included much theorizing 
about conflict management and the use of graduated responses to deter 
aggression that many soldiers neither fully understood nor embraced, 
the Army recognized in the limited war advocates a welcome ally in the 
struggle to save ground forces from irrelevancy. 61 

While neither the limited war theoreticians nor the Army’s senior 
leadership had much interest in or understanding of guerrilla warfare, 
both agreed that the United States needed to be able to combat irregu¬ 
lars without resorting to atomic weapons. In his bid to win greater 
resources for the Army, Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor 


158 




The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


frequently cited the increasing danger of so-called small wars” as 
justification for the development of “flexible, proportioned strength” 
capable of coping with small wars as well as big wars, with wars in 
jungle or mountains as well as in Europe,” and with “brush fires.” 62 
Under his aegis, in 1957 the Command and General Staff College 
drafted a strategy for combating Communist insurgencies. The “think 
piece” called for the provision of economic, financial, and technical 
aid to threatened societies to promote stability and economic develop¬ 
ment, the construction of communication and transportation infra¬ 
structures in those same countries to facilitate American intervention, 
and the creation of a U.S. Army intervention force endowed with “both 
a military capability and a political capability” and trained in antiguer¬ 
rilla warfare, civil disturbances, and small-unit operations. 63 

Eisenhower’s aversion for brush fire wars notwithstanding, he was 
already moving toward embracing elements of the CGSC’s proposed 
strategy. Mirroring the philosophy exhibited by the Marshall Plan 
and the policies pursued by the Truman administration in combating 
the postwar insurgencies, President Eisenhower announced in 1956 
that poverty was the primary facilitator for the spread of communism 
throughout the less developed areas of the world, and he vowed to 
increase the amount of economic, military, and ideological warfare 
assistance given to such areas. In addition to deploying eighty-five 
counterguerrilla mobile training teams to fourteen countries between 
1955 and 1960, Eisenhower initiated a police aid program that he 
thought would prove both more economical and more effective than 
military assistance in addressing the problems of internal insecurity. 
Managed largely by the International Cooperation Agency, with occa¬ 
sional participation by the Department of Defense and the Central 
Intelligence Agency (CIA), this program had by 1958 provided training 
in police administration, countersubversion, and community relations 
to 690,000 policemen in twenty-one countries. 64 As will be discussed 
more fully in the following chapter, President Eisenhower even saw 
merit in Taylor’s call for an intervention force, and in 1958 he autho¬ 
rized the creation of a Strategic Army Corps whose mission included 
preparing for overseas contingencies. 

Still, concerns over the threat of Communist insurgencies in the less 
developed world continued to grow, and in November 1958 Eisenhower 
initiated a major review of the military assistance program. Chaired 
by William H. Draper, the President’s Committee To Study the U.S. 
Military Assistance Program issued a report in August 1959 that called 
for several programmatic reforms. Among these were improvements 
in the selection and preparation of advisory personnel and a greater 


159 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


emphasis on countering subversion by providing counterintelligence, 
psychological warfare, and civil affairs assistance. 65 

The Draper committee also subscribed to an idea, recently proposed 
by the Army’s civil affairs commi lity, that the United States encourage 
foreign armies to promote socioeconomic development in their home 
countries. In this the committe 2 was particularly influenced by two of 
its members—retired Army Brig. Gen. Don G. Shingler, an engineer 
who wrote the committee’s civil affairs annex, and Col. Robert H. 
Slover, the committee’s secretary, who was a civil affairs officer and a 
veteran of the Army’s civil assistance program in Korea, AFAK. Also 
influential on this score were Army Chief of Staff Taylor, founder of 
AFAK, and Air Force Colonel Lansdale, who submitted a report on 
his Philippine activities to the Draper committee. In the committee’s 
view, military organizations were often the most efficient and modern 
institutions in underdeveloped countries, and consequently could act as 
“transmission belts” of administrative and technological skills to their 
parent societies. Moreover, by taking an active part in promoting socio¬ 
economic progress, foreign armies could help redress the causes of 
internal unrest and win popular approval for both themselves and their 
governments. The committee adopted Lansdale’s term civic action to 
describe military involvement in social, political, and economic reform 
programs of this kind. 

Not everyone was comfortable with civic action. Some soldiers 
feared that it would undermine readiness by diverting manpower and 
resources to nonmilitary functions, while State Department officials 
disliked the prospect of soldiers meddling in political affairs. Nor was 
there any true agreement as to exactly what civic action entailed. Was it 
nation building writ large or merely a collection of piecemeal projects? 
Did it aim to achieve long-term development or short-term changes 
of less lasting but more immediate impact? These and other questions 
were never fully answered, but the committee did establish some guide¬ 
lines. It stated that the performance of civic action activities should not 
be allowed to distract from an army’s primary, military duties; that civic 
action projects should not be carried out to the detriment of private 
enterprise or for the benefit of special interest groups; and that such 
programs should not exceed the capacity of the local society to absorb 
and maintain them. Within these parameters, the Draper committee 
strongly endorsed military civic action. 66 

The Eisenhower administration quickly embraced the committee’s 
recommendations. After incorporating language into the Mutual 
Security Act of 1959 that encouraged military involvement in nation 
building, in May 1960 it gave the Army limited authority to promote 


160 



The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


civic action programs overseas. The Departments of State and Defense 
reatlirmed this decision by informing all U.S. embassies, unified 
commands, and military assistance groups that US. policy was to 
encourage loreign military and paramilitary organizations to promote 
economic development. The United States likewise offered to send 
mobile training teams to help foreign governments plan and organize 
such efforts. The response was hardly overwhelming. Only two coun¬ 
tries—Guatemala and Iran—responded positively to the offer, in part 
because the United States intended to confine its civic action assistance 
to providing advice, rather than money and materiel. Unless the United 
States financed such endeavors, few countries were interested in hav¬ 
ing American military emissaries pontificate about the benefits of civic 
action. Undeterred by the lackluster response, in November 1960 the 
U.S. Army dispatched its first mobile civic action team to Guatemala, 
thereby setting in motion what would become one of America’s major 
weapons against Communist subversion in the third world.' 7 

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the pace of activity quickened. 
Spurred by the triumph of Fidel Castro’s insurgency in Cuba, the Joint 
Chiefs endorsed the administration’s growing concern over third world 
revolutions, noting that “the growth of nationalism and the desire for 
an improved lot among backward and dependent people” meant that 
“a major prize in the continuing conflict [with communism] . . . will 
be the adherence of wavering peoples to the Soviet or Western demo¬ 
cratic cause.” General Taylor concurred, and he initiated a review of 
the Army’s ability to combat guerrilla warfare. The review reached the 
rather dubious conclusion that the amount of attention devoted to coun¬ 
terguerrilla warfare in the Army’s training and doctrinal systems was 
“adequate and in balance with other training objectives.” Nevertheless, 
change was in the offing, and by 1960 the Joint Chiefs were freely 
admitting that at least one component of the military’s training sys¬ 
tem, the military assistance program, had not done an adequate job of 
preparing foreign soldiers to suppress insurgencies. Consequently, the 
Joint Chiefs directed the Army to begin posting a limited number of 
Special Forces, civil affairs, psychological warfare, and intelligence 
personnel in countries threatened by insurgency. It likewise instructed 
the Army to establish a special counterguerrilla operations course for 
both American and foreign personnel. This directive led to the estab¬ 
lishment of a six-week “Counter-Guerrilla Operations and Tactics” 
course at the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg on 26 January 1961, 
the first course in Army history entirely devoted to the subject. Finally, 
in October 1960 the National Security Council directed the Defense 
Department to develop a new doctrine for counterinsurgency, a task 


161 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


that the department delegated to the Army. Reflecting the growing con¬ 
sensus that “we need to improve our capabilities and those of our allies 
to conduct anti-guerrilla warfare,” Taylor’s successor as Army chief of 
staff, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, immediately put his staff to work 
crafting new doctrinal materials. 68 

In undertaking this task, Army personnel examined not only past 
American doctrine, but the recent experiences of others. As early as 
October 1950 the National Security Council had called for the United 
States to lead a multinational effort to gather information about the 
free world’s experiences in countering Communist guerrillas. In prac¬ 
tice, this effort had had little if any impact on Army doctrine because 
the basic doctrine (FM 31-20 of 1951) had already been written and 
subsequent Army manuals had done little more than convey distilled 
versions of this material. Nevertheless, the Army had not ignored the 
contemporary experiences of others. Throughout the decade, military 
attaches and intelligence officers had gathered foreign works pertain¬ 
ing to counterinsurgency, while a small number of officers had ana¬ 
lyzed and disseminated this information through journal articles and 
student papers A 

For the most part, Americans focused their attention on the British 
and French. As early as 1951, one of the Army’s foremost experts on 
psychological warfare, Maj. Paul Linebarger, had declared Britain’s 
methods in countering Communist guerrillas in Malaya to be “one of 
our most valuable codes of military training and doctrine.” Although 
interest in Malaya remained modest for most of the decade, by 1960 
the Army had distributed copies of the British manual Conduct of 
Anti-terrorist Operations in Malaya to all its service schools for use in 
formulating doctrine. 70 

The Army also gathered information on French operations in 
Indochina and Algeria during the 1950s, but U.S. soldiers did not show 
much interest in the French experience until the end of the decade. 
The language barrier and political tensions between the United States 
and France impeded the acquisition of information, while France’s 
defeat in Indochina further discouraged analysis, as Americans look¬ 
ing for examples to emulate naturally gravitated toward winners, like 
the British, rather than losers. Those who examined the Indochina War 
echoed the conclusions drawn by U.S. political and military officials 
at the time. They roundly criticized France for failing to initiate sound 
political policies to win Vietnamese popular favor, while dismissing 
French military operations as being too passive and defensively ori¬ 
ented. Such criticisms fully reflected U.S. Army preference for positive 
programs and aggressive action. 71 


162 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


While the Indochina experience was largely dismissed. Army ana¬ 
lysts of the late 1950s paid somewhat more attention to the civil war in 
Algeria (1954-1962), partly because it was more recent and therefore 
offered a window into the latest French thinking and partly because 
the French seemed more successful there. American interest in French 
thought also intensified when, after several years of soul searching, 
the French began to distill the lessons of their Indochina and Algerian 
experiences into a new counterinsurgency doctrine, which they called 
guerre revolutionnaire (“revolutionary war”). The Army acquired 
and translated several tracts on guerre revolutionnaire , republishing 
excerpts in military journals, while individual officers occasionally 
analyzed the new doctrine through articles and essays. Although U.S. 
commentators found certain aspects of the French Army’s behavior 
disturbing—most notably its willingness to resort to torture, heavy- 
handed propaganda, and antidemocratic activities—they were drawn 
by the doctrine’s modern feel. Unlike existing American and British 
doctrine, which addressed guerrilla warfare from the perspectives of 
rear area security and colonial administration, guerre revolutionnaire 
placed irregular conflict firmly in the context of the Cold War. Modern 
guerrilla warfare, according to guerre revolutionnaire theorists, was 
the product of an international Communist conspiracy that attacked 
the West by exploiting third world conditions. Guerre revolutionnaire ’s 
relevance to contemporary issues was further amplified by its explic¬ 
itly Maoist focus. Unlike American manuals, which made no mention 
at all of Mao’s theories, the French were fascinated by contemporary 
Communist organizational, political, and manipulative techniques, 
insisting that counterinsurgents develop Western equivalents to coun¬ 
teract each Communist initiative. French theory also elevated politi¬ 
cal, social, and psychological countermeasures to positions coequal 
with that of traditional military action—a perspective that many U.S. 
politicians, civilian strategists, and unconventional warfare specialists 
found appealing, not only because it magnified the roles they would 
play in managing future conflicts, but because the doctrine dovetailed 
with their own perceptions. Consequently, though still new and only 
partially understood, guerre revolutionnaire added momentum to the 
reevaluation of U.S. doctrine. 72 

The Army’s promotion of civic action and its growing interest in 
Mao and guerre revolutionnaire also reflected broader trends in the aca¬ 
demic and political community. During the 1950s the continuous politi¬ 
cal, social, and economic upheaval experienced by many of the world’s 
poorer and post-colonial societies had drawn the attention of academ¬ 
ics and policy makers alike. They sought to understand the nature of 


163 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

political and economic development in the hope of discovering a way 
to stop the spread of communism and encourage the growth of open, 
democratic, and capitalistic societies. Leading the academic effort was 
Walt W. Rostow whose 1960 book, The Stages of Economic Growth: A 
Non-Communist Manifesto , had an immediate and far-ranging impact. 

Rostow theorized that every society went through five fairly com¬ 
parable stages of economic development. Of these, the transition to 
modernity was the most destabilizing, as traditional values and institu¬ 
tions clashed with more modern ones, creating confusion, strife, and 
upheaval in every aspect of political, social, and economic life. Rapid 
population growth, urbanization, and technological change complicated 
the transition, as did the competing forces of colonialism, national¬ 
ism, and regionalism. Rostow hypothesized that a “revolution of rising 
expectations” existed that, if long unfulfilled, might tempt the peoples 
of the underdeveloped world to embrace communism as a shortcut to 
modernization. Indeed, in his estimation, communism was a disease 
that thrived during this transitional stage, shamelessly exploiting and 
subverting the aspirations of the masses for its own ends. But just as a 
doctor could use medical science to defeat disease, Rostow believed that 
skilled practitioners of the social sciences—politics, economics, and 
sociology—could defeat communism by administering carefully crafted 
programs in a way that would allow emerging societies to “take off” on 
their journey toward achieving Western-style democratic capitalism. 73 

While the theory was new, the prescription—enlightened politi¬ 
cal, social, and economic reforms implemented under the guidance 
of a benevolent American patron—echoed long-established themes 
in America’s liberal and progressive tradition, not to mention general 
Western conceptions of the “white man’s burden.” As such, Rostow’s 
blending of state of the art social science with traditional American 
themes struck a cord among many policy makers who, like Truman 
and Eisenhower, regarded economic rehabilitation and modernization 
as vaccines against communism. One politician who was particularly 
enamored with Rostow’s theories was the presidential candidate and 
senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, who had long believed 
that aggressive political, psychological, and economic measures—rather 
than mere military force—were the surest way to defeat Communist 
insurgencies in the developing world. 74 

During the 1960 presidential contest, Kennedy charged that 
President Eisenhower’s frugality had allowed the Soviet Union to 
surpass the United States in nearly every field of strategic endeav¬ 
or—nuclear missile construction, conventional force modernization, 
political and psychological warfare, and economic aid to developing 


164 









The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


countiies. The only way to address these “gaps,” Kennedy argued, was 
to lavish economic, social, and technical assistance on developing 
countries, while creating military organizations capable of defeating 
Communist forces in both conventional and third world conflicts. 

Kennedy’s platform appealed to Army leaders. Like much of offi¬ 
cial Washington, the Army accepted Rostow’s developmental theory at 
face value. Kennedy’s call for the creation of more robust and “flex¬ 
ible” conventional military forces likewise paralleled the Army’s own 
critique of Eisenhower’s defense policies, as expressed in two books 
written by retired Army generals —The Uncertain Trumpet, by Maxwell 
Taylor, and War and Peace in the Space Age, by James M. Gavin. The 
result was that a multiplicity of factors—previous Army thinking about 
counterguerrilla warfare and pacification, emerging academic theories 
about politico-economic development and limited war, the continued 
threat of Communist-backed insurgencies, and contemporary European 
experience in colonial conflicts—all converged to influence Army 
planners and doctrine writers in the waning days of the Eisenhower 
administration. 75 

During the closing months of 1960 the Army produced a number 
of documents that reflected the prevailing trends. The first such docu¬ 
ment was a new edition of FM 7-100, The Infantry Division, published 
in November. The manual incorporated for the first time a seven-page 
section on counterguerrilla warfare that provided a condensed ver¬ 
sion of some of the principles first developed by Colonel Volckmann 
nine years earlier. Although the manual made no reference to Maoist 
revolutionary warfare, the resurrection of old, but still valid, doctrinal 
principles signaled the Army’s rising interest in irregular warfare. 76 

A more forward-looking document appeared the following month 
in the guise of “Strategic Army Study, 1970” (STARS-70). This report 
offered a blueprint for how the Army might exploit the opportunity 
offered by the presidential election to win a greater share of defense 
resources. Army Chief of Staff General George H. Decker believed that 
President-elect Kennedy would be receptive to constructive proposals 
on how the United States could shed itself of the “political straight 
jacket” created by Eisenhower’s policies in favor of a more “active for¬ 
ward military strategy” in which the United States could, with flexibili¬ 
ty and precision, either deter, meet, or defeat every form of Communist 
aggression. Decker maintained that the U.S. Army was “uniquely fitted 
for and must take the lead in meeting the Communists face-to-face in 
the struggle for freedom of the less developed countries.” 7 Following 
Rostow’s precepts, the study stated that a “revolution of rising expec¬ 
tations” was sweeping the third world. To meet the legitimate aspira- 


165 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


tions of underdeveloped nations for prosperity while preventing any 
drift toward communism, Decker argued that the United States should 
“expand the role of the armed forces in contributing to political and 
economic growth in underdeveloped countries.” 7 " Refocusing the 
military assistance program on internal security and utilizing American 
military resources to implement civic action and public welfare pro¬ 
grams would, the Army asserted, “have the effect of insinuating the 
political power of the United States into these countries” thereby help¬ 
ing to stem any untoward radicalism that might derail progress toward 
achieving democratic, capitalistic institutions. 71 ' 

In practical terms, STARS-70 called for Army officers to broaden 
their horizons and embrace a more activist role in world affairs. It 
also recommended that the Army recruit more Special Forces person¬ 
nel, raise three new divisions, and create two Cold War task forces. 
One task force would be oriented toward Africa and the Middle East 
while the other concentrated on Southeast Asia. Each would contain 
9,000 men split among a reinforced airborne brigade, a Special Forces 
group, an aviation element, and a logistical command. In addition 
to providing training assistance in conventional, unconventional, 
and counterguerrilla warfare, the airborne and Special Forces ele¬ 
ments would be able to undertake independent operations should the 
United States choose to intervene directly in another nation’s affairs, 
while the civil affairs, engineer, medical, and psychological warfare 
components provided humanitarian, socioeconomic development, 
and reconstructive assistance. Such task forces would spearhead the 
Army’s efforts to shape the destiny of the underdeveloped world." 0 

About the time General Decker approved the STARS-70 report, 
the Special Warfare Division of the Office of the Deputy Chief of 
Staff for Military Operations (ODCSOPS) produced a paper on 
counterinsurgency operations that fully reflected the new policy 
thrust. The study, “Counter Insurgency Operations: A Handbook for 
the Suppression of Communist Guerrilla/Terrorist Operations,” rep¬ 
resented a blend of American, British, and to a lesser extent, French, 
influences. 81 Although the handbook could be used by U.S. troops 
in a foreign insurgency, the authors really intended the study as a 
guide for U.S. advisory and assistance personnel, since they believed 
that “it is neither politically feasible or operationally practicable to 
entertain the use of U.S. conventional forces in any intervention role 
within these numerous and widespread areas.” This reflected both 
Eisenhower administration policy and an awareness of public antipa¬ 
thy for directly intervening in the internal affairs of foreign countries. 
The handbook also asserted that 


166 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


The use of major elements ol loreign . . . troops to suppress such guerrilla/ter- 
i or ist opeiations is neither piactical from a military viewpoint nor psychologi¬ 
cally feasible. These forces are generally unfamiliar with the customs, geogra¬ 
phy, language, and people ol the area and have not been trained in the specific 
techniques and tactics necessary for successful operations. The presence of 
major bodies ot toreign troops is unpalatable to the indigenous population and 
discredits the government in power as a ‘puppet’ or ‘tool’ of the foreign impe¬ 
rialists incapable of ruling without the support of foreign troops. 82 

Consequently, the study advocated that the United States work primar¬ 
ily through its military assistance groups and small teams of specialists, 
such as the task forces called for in STARS-70. 

The ODCSOPS handbook stated that counterinsurgency was unlike 
conventional war in that conventional war was largely destructive 
while counterinsurgency revolved around mainly constructive actions 
designed to redress whatever societal problems were causing unrest. 
It further asserted that military force alone “cannot win the conflict 
without extensive changes and reforms to eliminate the causes of the 
dissension and revolt,” and it criticized most past counterinsurgency 
efforts for focusing too narrowly on conventional military solutions 
while failing both to redress grievances and to protect people from 
guerrilla influence and intimidation. Consequently, the handbook, 
echoing established American doctrine, called for the formulation of 
a national politico-military plan that coordinated the actions of every 
branch of government. To further such coordination, the handbook took 
a page from the British in Malaya by advocating the establishment of 
joint civil-military commands and pacification committees at every 
layer of government down to the village level. 83 

Having established an overall strategy and the mechanisms needed 
to execute it, the handbook offered a four-phase plan of operations. 
During the first phase, government forces would enter a region slated 
for pacification and establish local governments, pacification commit¬ 
tees, and paramilitary self-defense militias. The government would also 
create an elaborate intelligence and propaganda system, initiate eco¬ 
nomic rehabilitation programs, and impose a variety of population- and 
resources-control measures, including a stringent food rationing system. 
Although reforms designed to eliminate government corruption and 
stimulate economic recovery would begin at the outset of the campaign, 
the plan placed most of its emphasis on organizational and security mea¬ 
sures and on short-term, high-impact programs rather than long-term 
development projects as it believed that the latter were generally inef¬ 
fective in a revolutionary environment. Phase two consisted of offensive 
operations to break up and destroy large guerrilla concentrations and 


167 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


drive them away from populated areas. Other measures, including forc¬ 
ibly relocating people and creating “sanitary zones” cleared of human 
habitation, would likewise serve to isolate the guerrillas. Military 
operations during the third phase were similar, but targeted smaller 
guerrilla bands and the enemy’s clandestine support structure, with 
“stringent punishment” being meted out to persons harboring guerrillas. 
Meanwhile, every effort would be made to continue to harass the guer¬ 
rillas and make their situation untenable, especially by destroying “small 
garden plots, fields and cattle stock held or used by guerrilla elements 
in remote or sparsely populated regions.” These measures, coupled with 
a strong propaganda campaign and offers of amnesty and rehabilitation, 
would, the handbook authors hoped, break the back of the insurgent 
movement. Once the military had cleared an area of guerrillas and their 
politico-military apparatus, the government would initiate major socio¬ 
economic reform programs during the fourth and final phase. The Army 
would transfer most of the regular troops to pacify other areas, while 
those who remained, together with local police and paramilitary forces, 
would actively assist in the economic restoration effort." 4 

Operationally, the handbook called for continuous, aggressive 
action, warning against passivity and overdispersion. Perhaps reflect¬ 
ing British experience in Malaya, the authors departed from previous 
American doctrine by discouraging the use of large-scale operations, 
which they believed were frequently ineffective. In the view of the 
Special Warfare Division, operations of battalion size or larger should 
be rare, with most actions being undertaken by infantry companies, pla¬ 
toons, and squads augmented by specially trained hunter-killer teams 
and units of police, militia, and “galvanized guerrillas.” Heliborne 
operations also played a critical role in official thinking, and, although 
the paper declined to recommend specific tactics in recognition of the 
need for flexibility, it endorsed the Army’s traditional formulation of 
finding, fixing, fighting, and finishing the enemy. 85 

The ODCSOPS handbook heralded counterinsurgency’s resurgence 
in official American military thought. On 8 December 1960, just one 
week after the ODCSOPS had completed the handbook, the Department 
of the Army elevated many similar ideas into official doctrine when 
it approved for publication a new chapter to FM 100-1, Doctrinal 
Guidance. Developed at the Command and General Staff College in 
response to the National Security Council (NSC) directive requiring 
the formulation of new doctrine, the chapter mirrored the handbook in 
reflecting a mix of traditional American principles with the gleanings 
of foreign experience. Titled “Military Operations Against Irregular 
Forces,” the chapter differed from previously published doctrine in that 


168 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


it placed guenilla warfare firmly in the context of contemporary third 
world insurgent y, describing the social, political, and economic condi¬ 
tions that genei illy gave rise to revolutionary movements. 86 

Because 1M 100—1 was devoted to propounding basic doctrinal 
statements, the new chapter did not delve into the type of detail found 
in the ODCSOPS handbook. Like the ODCSOPS piece, it stressed 
the political aspects of counterinsurgency, stating that “military units 
employed against irregular forces normally operate in an environment 
which is inherently sensitive, both politically and militarily. The scope 
and nature ot missions assigned will frequently include political and 
administrative aspects and objectives not usually considered normal to 
military opera ions.” 8 Cognizant of the fact that guerrilla movements 
were usually tl e product, not the cause, of civil unrest, and that popular 
support was vit il to the success of insurgent and counterinsurgent alike, 
the manual stn sed that '"the local government being supported by the 
U.S., as well as J.S. forces, must present a concrete program which will 
win popular suj port.” Such a program entailed a mixture of good troop 
conduct and dis cipline, psychological warfare, political and administra¬ 
tive reform, relief and rehabilitation, and civic action, which the manual 
defined as ""any action performed by the military forces utilizing avail¬ 
able human and material resources for the well-being and improvement 
of the community.” The manual also reiterated civil affairs doctrine 
in recommending that restrictions on civilian activity be as limited as 
conditions would allow so as not to alienate the population, though it 
permitted the imposition of sanctions if necessary. 8 " 

Operationally, the new chapter called for the conduct of a coor¬ 
dinated military, psychological, and intelligence campaign in terms 
that were similar to the ODCSOPS handbook. The first step of any 
campaign was to isolate the guerrilla from all sources of internal and 
external support, including civilian supporters and the members of the 
covert apparatus, whom the manual stated were often more dangerous 
than the armed insurgents themselves. The military would seal the 
nation’s borders, blockade guerrilla base areas, and clear areas sympa¬ 
thetic to the insurgency by removing the inhabitants. Population- and 
resource-control measures, including stringent controls over the pro¬ 
duction and distribution of food, weapons, and medical supplies, would 
further deny the guerrillas access to these vital commodities, as would 
“extensive ground and air search for and destruction of irregular force 
supply caches and installations.” 8 " 

Because allied forces would not likely have enough manpower to 
conduct pacification operations everywhere simultaneously, the manu¬ 
al recommended that counterinsurgents divide the operational area into 


169 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


subareas, each of which would be sealed, scoured, and pacified in turn 
before moving to the next. This prescription was reminiscent of allied 
operations during the Greek Civil War as well as the old French tache 
d’huile system in which government control gradually spread across the 
countryside like a drop of oil on water. Once an area had been selected 
for pacification, security forces would seal the region’s perimeter while 
other forces established strongpoints for the area control operations that 
were to follow. In addition to reestablishing government authority and 
quelling civil disturbances, the security forces would initiate an exten¬ 
sive psychological warfare and counterintelligence effort to sway opin¬ 
ion and attack the enemy’s covert apparatus. The military would also 
conduct extensive ground and heliborne patrols, raids, and ambushes 
to keep the enemy off-balance and on the move. Those enemy forces 
willing to fight in open battle were to be surrounded and annihilated. 
Smaller groups would be perpetually hounded by patrols composed of 
regular soldiers, police, paramilitary, and special antiguerrilla forma¬ 
tions. Operations would continue, supplemented by civil initiatives, 
until the area had been fairly well cleared, at which time the bulk of the 
regulars would move on to a new district, leaving behind enough troops 
and paramilitary forces to provide security and assist the government’s 
reconstructive efforts. 90 

Having described the general course of a campaign, the chapter 
made several peripheral suggestions as to the conduct of counterir¬ 
regular operations. It recommended maximum use of indigenous 
manpower as soldiers, policemen, and village militiamen. The manual 
likewise recommended that troops be kept in the same general area as 
much as possible so as to reap the benefits that came with familiarity 
with a locality’s political and military topography. In terms of training, 
the manual indicated that troops slated for counterguerrilla service 
receive an intensive course in small-unit tactics, long-range patrolling, 
night movements, raids, ambushes, security, civil affairs, intelligence, 
and police operations. Troop indoctrination courses, as well as coun¬ 
try-specific language, cultural, and environmental training, were also 
desirable. Finally, the chapter concluded with general remarks on the 
logistical, intelligence, and civil affairs aspects of counterguerrilla 
operations. 91 

Published on 10 January 1961 as Change 1 to FM 100-1, 
Doctrinal Guidance , “Military Operations Against Irregular Forces” 
was an important document. Together with the ODCSOPS handbook, 
it marked a dramatic shift from the generic counterguerrilla and rear 
area security focus of previous doctrine to a new paradigm of third 
world revolution and Maoist-style “people’s wars.” Both documents 


170 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


were consistent with current trends in American political, strategic, 
and developmental theory and with contemporary foreign thinking. As 
such they represented the first steps toward the gradual reorientation of 
doctrine to better meet the threats and challenges of the contemporary 
world. And yet, while these documents introduced some new terms, 
concepts, and techniques, what is perhaps most striking about the new 
literature was how little of it was actually “new.” Many of the ideas, 
concepts, and methods touted in the ODCSOPS handbook and the 
insert to FM 100-1 had appeared ten years earlier in the now defunct 
FM 31-20 of 1951 and were still represented to an extent in manuals 
like FM 31-15 (1953), 100-5 (1954), and 41-10 (1957). Rather than 
discard the lessons of previous experience, American doctrinal writers 
had merely reframed them into a more contemporary context. Change 
1 to FM 100-1 thus marked not just the birth of new ideas, but the 
resurrection of old ones. 

“Military Operations Against Irregular Forces” was the last doctri¬ 
nal initiative to come to fruition under the Eisenhower administration. 
Ten days after its publication, John F. Kennedy was sworn into office 
as the thirty-fifth president of the United States. His elevation to the 
presidency buoyed the spirits of many of the Army’s senior leaders 
who believed that he would lift the Army out of the doldrums of the 
Eisenhower years into a new place of bureaucratic and strategic promi¬ 
nence. In this, they would not be disappointed, and yet senior officers 
would soon have cause to appreciate the old adage “be careful what 
you wish for.” The vigorous new president and his civilian aides would 
soon initiate a torrent of new programs and initiatives with regard to the 
organization, administration, and doctrine of America’s armed forces 
that would leave Army leaders scrambling to catch up. Although many 
of Kennedy’s initiatives would be beneficial, they also included deci¬ 
sions that would ultimately lead to war in Vietnam. U.S. Army counter¬ 
insurgency doctrine would be at the very center of the coming vortex. 


171 


Notes 


' Ltrs, Russell Volckmann to Maj Tommy King, John F. Kennedy Center for Military 
Assistance, 1 Aug 75, and to Beverly Lindsey, 21 Mar 69. Both in the History Office, 
John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, N.C. (hereafter cited as JFKSWC/ 
HO). Rod Paschall, “Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine: Who Needs It?” Parameters 
15 (Autumn 1985): 42, 45; Johnny Stevens, “Russell William Volckmann,” Assembly 
47 (April 1988): 148^19. After completing the drafts of the two manuals, Volckmann 
helped organize guerrilla and counterguerrilla operations during the Korean War. In 
1952 he returned to the United States where he became one of the founding fathers of 
the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. He retired as a brigadier general in 1957. 

2 For example, FM 31-20 contained several passages lifted virtually verbatim from 
Greek counterguerrilla doctrine—doctrine that was itself based on German techniques. 
Compare Greek General Staff, Suppression of Irregular Bandit Operations, c. 1947- 
1948, pp. 15-16, Historians files, CMH, with FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla 
Forces, 1951, p. 108. 

3 McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, pp. 59-60; “German Tactics of Combating 
Guerrillas,” Military Review 24 (June 1944): 104-06; Allied Force Headquarters, 
“German Measures in Combating the Partisans,” Intelligence Notes 62 (6 June 
1944): C-4 to C-6; Allied Force Headquarters, “German Instructions for Operations 
Against Partisans,” Intelligence Notes 72 (5 September 1944): C-6 to C-7; Allied 
Force Headquarters, “German Methods in Anti-partisan Warfare,” Intelligence Notes 
78 (17 October 1944): C-7 to C-8; Great Britain, Imperial General Staff, Notes from 
Theatres of War, no. 21, Partisans (War Office, 1945), pp. 9-30; Supreme Headquarters, 
Allied Expeditionary Force, Combating the Guerrilla (1945); Translation, U.S. Army 
Intelligence Division, Fighting the Guerrilla Bands, 1944. 

4 For a listing of German monographs, see Historical Division, U.S. Army Europe, 
Guide to Foreign Military Studies, 1945-54, Catalog and Index (HQ, U.S. Army, 
Europe, 1954). Ofc, Ch, Army Field Forces, Training Bulletin 1, 8 Sep 50, p. 15, in 350.9 
AFF Training Bulletins, CMH. 

■ Kevin Soutor, “To Stem the Red Tide: The German Report Series and Its Effects 
on American Defense Doctrine, 1948-1954,” Journal of Military History 57 (October 
1993): 653-88; Memo, Brig Gen Robert McClure for Ch of Military History, 15 Mar 
51, sub: Generation and Character of Guerrilla Resistance, 370.64, Office of Chief 
of Special Warfare, 1951-54, RG 319, NARA. The two antiguerrilla pamphlets were 
Department of the Army Pamphlet (DA Pam) 20-240, “Rear Area Security in Russia,” 
distributed in manuscript form in July 1950 in response to the Korean situation but 
not formally published until July 1951, and DA Pam 20-243, “German Antiguerrilla 
Operations in the Balkans,” by Robert Kennedy, originally produced as a monograph 
before being published as a pamphlet in August 1954. That Volckmann had access to 
these monographs before their formal publication can be seen by comparing DA Pam 
20-240, pp. 34, 36, 39, with FM 31-20, 1951, pp. 71-72. Some of the more important 
German monographs produced by the Historical Division, U.S. Army, Europe, can be 
found in the section of the select bibliography titled “Foreign Military Studies and 
Monographs.” For examples of articles that derived lessons from German experience, 
see Lloyd Marr, “Rear Area Security,” Military Review 31 (May 1951): 57-62; Hellmuth 


172 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


Kreidel, “Agents and Propaganda in Partisan Warfare,” Military Review 39 (November 
1959): 102-05; Thomas Collier, “Partisans, the Forgotten Force,” Infantry School 
Qua) terly (August—September 1960): 4—8; Joseph Bourdow, “Big War Guerrillas and 
Counter-Guerrillas,” Army 13 (August 1962): 66-69. Other studies concerning the Axis 
experience produced by either the Office of the Chief of Military History, the Army, 
oi some othei Depaitment ot Defense agency can be found in the section of the select 
bibliogiaphy titled Studies and Monographs. Privately published books available to 
Army officers in the early 1950s included Heilbrunn, Partisan Warfare, and Laqueur, 
Guerrilla. 

Quotes from FM 31—20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, 1951, p. iii, and see 
also pp. 1, 12, 24, 27-30, 37, 41, 49-51. 

7 Quotes from ibid., p. 63, and see also pp. 61, 64, 66. 

8 Ibid., p. 65. 

9 Ibid., pp. 61, 66-72, 74, 78-83. 

111 Ibid., pp. 44-45. 

11 Ibid., pp. 62, 65, 75-76. 

u Ibid., pp. 55, 71, 86, 93. The manual’s population- and resources-control measures 
were in accord with international law. Compare, for example, the measures listed in FM 
31—20, 1951, pp. 84—85, with the standards applied during the Nuremberg war crimes 
trials as found in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals 
Under Control Law Number 10 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950), 
11:1249-50. 

13 First quote from FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, 1951, p. 61. 
Second quote from ibid., p. 83. 

14 First quote from ibid., p. 28. Second quote from ibid., p. 99, and see also pp. 52, 
93. 

15 Quote from Arthur Murphy, “Principles of Anti-Guerrilla Warfare,” Infantry 
School Quarterly 39 (July 1951): 59. Even Volckmann admitted that Japan’s retaliatory 
measures, while generally counterproductive, had occasionally succeeded in turning 
the Filipino population against his guerrillas. Volckmann, We Remained, pp. 151, 234. 
As late as 1977 the U.S. government objected to efforts to amend the 1949 Geneva 
Conventions so as to completely ban reprisals on the grounds that such measures were 
indispensable in counterguerrilla warfare. Donald Wells, The Laws of Land Warfare: A 
Guide to Army Manuals (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992), p. 44. A similar 
dichotomy existed in doctrine written in 1951 for use by American guerrillas which, 
while encouraging good conduct and the initiation of measures designed to win popular 
support, also permitted the guerrillas to use reprisals, destruction, terror, and assassina¬ 
tion to impose their will on the population. FM 31-21, Organization and Conduct of 
Guerrilla Warfare, 1951, pp. 113-17. 

16 FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, 1951, pp. 37, 62, 71-74, 102-03. 
Compare security techniques as presented in the Army’s translation of Fighting the 
Guerrilla Bands, pp. 36—46, with FM 31-20, 1951, pp. 85-91. 

17 Quote from FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, 1951, p. 126, and see 
also pp. 62-63, 78, 104-05, 124, 130, 134-35. 

18 Ibid., pp. 83, 104, 117-24. Many of the ideas used to describe the special antiguer¬ 
rilla units were drawn directly from Fighting the Guerrilla Bands, pp. 34-36. 

19 FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, 1951, pp. 76-77. 

20 Ibid., pp. 127-34. 


173 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


21 Compare Fighting the Guerrilla Bands, pp. 11—12, 28—34, 63—65, with FM 31 20, 
1951, pp. 105-17. Compare also Greek General Staff, Suppression of Irregular Bandit 
Operations, c. 1947-1948, pp. 15-16, with FM 31-20, 1951, p. 108. 

22 FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces , 1951, pp. 109-13. 

23 Ibid., pp. 113-17. 

24 Ibid., pp. 103-04, 117. 

25 Ibid., pp. 26, 86, 125-26. 

26 AWC, Report of Conference of Commandants of Army Service Schools, 29 
January-1 February 1951, p. 21; “Antiguerrilla Operations,” Officer’s Call 3 (March 
1951): 1-15. 

27 A “change” document alters, amends, or supplements an existing manual. The 
Army issues a change when it believes that a modification is necessary but does not 
warrant the printing of an entirely new manual. The substance of a change can vary 
from minor editorial corrections to significant doctrinal statements. Though sometimes 
ignored by historians, changes represent official doctrine and by regulation must be 
incorporated immediately into all existing manuals. 

28 Quote from FM 100-5, Field Sendee Regulations, Operations, chg 1, 25 Jul 52, p. 
9, and see also pp. 1-8. 

29 First quote from FM 31-15, Operations Against Airborne Attack, Guerrilla 
Action, and Infiltration, 1953, p. 43. Remaining quotes from ibid., p. 6, and see also 
pp. 12-13,44-^45. 

311 First and second quotes from ibid., p. 6. Third quote from FM 31-15, Operations 
Against Airborne Attack, Guerrilla Action, and Infiltration, chg 1, 5 Nov 54, p. 2. 
See also Study, Lt Col Russell Volckmann, Ofc, Ch of Psychological Warfare, Rear 
Area Defense, 27 Aug 51, Historians files, CMH; AWC, Report of Conference of 
Commandants of Army Service Schools, 29 January-1 February 1951, p. 31. 

31 Quote from Franz Haider et al., Analysis of U.S. Field Service Regulations, P-133 
(Historical Division, U.S. Army, Europe, 1953), pp. 9-10, Foreign Military Studies 
Collection, MHI. Soutor, “Stem the Red Tide,” pp. 676-77. 

32 The Army probably did not give Haider FM 31-20 because it lay outside his nar¬ 
row focus on FM 100-5. Haider’s group began working in February 1952, five months 
before the Army published Change 1 to FM 100-5. The Army probably never gave a 
copy of the change to the Germans, and their final report, submitted in April 1953, does 
not reflect any awareness of its existence. 

33 Quote from FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, 1954, p. 133, and 
see also pp. 58-59, 132. 

34 Quote from ibid., p. 7, and see also pp. 4-6. Worth noting is that of the six mis¬ 
sions the manual stated the Army was uniquely suited to perform, three—combating 
guerrilla forces and suppressing revolutions, preventing enemy infiltration of friendly 
areas, and occupying and controlling enemy territory and the populations therein— 
were directly related to counterguerrilla and pacification operations. Although this 
declaration did not imply that the Army actually devoted half of its time preparing for 
such missions, their enumeration as fundamental Army tasks at least guaranteed them 
some consideration. The Army’s other three tasks, all of which were listed before the 
three “unconventional” missions, were defending against enemy land forces, attriting 
enemy land forces through sustained pressure, and compelling the enemy’s ground 
forces to mass, thereby enhancing their vulnerability to nuclear attack. 


174 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


35 The Arm Y had developed the concept of consolidation psywar during World War 
II and included its techniques in its postwar training curriculums, but prior to 1955 the 
Army had not actually included it in an official field manual. FM 33-5, Psychological 
Warfare Operations , 1955, pp. 223, 229, 239. 

36 Quote FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare , 1956, p. 9, and see also p. 19. 

7 Quote from ibid., p. 23. 

s Quote from ibid., p. 145. The regulation further pointed out that according to 
American law, any citizen who provided an enemy with weapons, money, supplies, or 
intelligence could be tried and executed, a precedent that other countries could apply 
against their own nationals who supported indigenous insurgent movements. Ibid , pp 
25-28,31,33-34. 

Strom Thurmond, “CAMG Combat Support Axioms,” Military Review> 38 (January 
1959): 1, 7. 

40 FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Military Government Operations , 1957, pp. 4-5, 7, 17-18, 
66-67, 93-96. 

41 Ibid., pp. 67, 72-73, 97-99, 109. 

For American attitudes toward population relocation prior to 1941, see Birtle, 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine. As illustrated in the preceding chapters, American mili¬ 
tary and political officials had exhibited mixed feelings toward population relocation 
during the Greek, Philippine, and Korean civil wars. FM 31-20, 1951, p. 85, had listed 
population evacuation as a possible tool but had assigned it no special significance, 
and officers continued to be divided over its utility. Evidence for this can be seen in 
reactions to a 1953 Operations Research Office study of counterguerrilla operations in 
Korea, the Philippines, and Malaya. The study had recommended that “as far as pos¬ 
sible, local citizens should be concentrated and employed in emergency governmental 
programs in an effort to occupy them gainfully and reduce the danger of continuous 
Communist agitation.” Maj. Gen. Harry M. Roper, the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, 
G-3, for Research, Requirements, and Special Weapons, wrote that, while Army doc¬ 
trine recognized the salutary effects of promoting employment, “this recommendation 
appears to establish a basic principle of wholesale evacuation of the civilian population 
to concentration camps and the impressment into labor units. This is not acceptable as 
doctrine.” See Memo, Maj Gen Harry M. Roper, Dep Assistant Chief of Staff (ACS), 
G-3, for Research, Requirements, and Special Weapons, for Ch of Military History, 13 
Sep 54, sub: Technical Memorandum ORO-T-228, “Salient Operational Aspects of 
Paramilitary Warfare in the Three Asian Areas,” Incl to Fred Barton, Salient Operational 
Aspects of Paramilitary Warfare in Three Asian Areas, ORO T-228 (Chevy Chase, Md.: 
Operations Research Office, 1953), copy in CMH. On the other hand. Col. Wendell W. 
Perham, of the Office of Civil Affairs and Military Government, while sharing General 
Roper’s concerns that morale “within the enclosure may become that of a captive rather 
than of a protected population,” believed that the benefits derived from providing eco¬ 
nomic and social relief in a controlled atmosphere outweighed the disadvantages of relo¬ 
cation and resettlement, citing the Economic Development Corps as one such example. 
Memo, Col Wendell W. Perham, Dep Ch, Ofc of Civil Affairs and Military Government, 
for ACS, G-3, 15 Dec 54, sub: Technical Memorandum ORO-T-228, 040 ORO, G-3, 
1954, RG 319, NARA. 

43 Quote from Memo, Commandant, Psychological Warfare School, for Ch, Army 
Field Forces, 17 Feb 54, sub: Transfer of FMs 31-20 and 31-21 to the Psychological 
Warfare School. Memo, Ch, Army Field Forces, for Commandant, Psychological 


175 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Warfare School, 4 Mar 54, sub: Transfer of FMs 31-20 and 31-21 to the Psychological 
Warfare School. Both in 300.7 manuals, Office of Chief of Special Warfare, 1951-58, 
RG 319, NARA. Memo, Joint Subsidiary Plans Div, JCS, for Ch, Psychological 
Warfare, et al., 17 Jan 54, sub: Operational Requirements for Psychological and 
Unconventional Warfare, 370.64, Office of Chief of Special Warfare, 1951-54, RG 
319, NARA. 

44 Alfred Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins—Psychological and 
Unconventional Warfare, 1941-1952 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 
1982), p. 120. 

45 FM 31-21, Guerrilla Warfare, 1955, p. 63. 

46 Discussions of counterguerrilla operations in branch-level manuals during the 
1950s were brief, consisting of little more than excerpts from either FM 31-20 (1951) 
or FM 31-21 (1955). See, for example, FM 7-17, The Armored Infantry Company and 
Battalion, 1951, pp. 545-51; FM 17—1, Armor Operations—Small Units, 1957, p. 318; 
FM 17-100, The Armored Division and Combat Command, 1958, pp. 186, 220. 

47 “Partisan Operations,” CGSC lecture 3362, 1949-1950, pp. 7-8; “Partisan 
Operations,” CGSC lecture 3303, 1948-1949; “Partisan Operations,” CGSC lecture 
64008/1, 1950-1951. All in the Combined Arms Research Library (CARL), Fort 
Leavenworth, Kans. George Metcalf, “Offensive Partisan Warfare,” Military Review 32 
(April 1952): 53; Report on Infantry School Instruction in Special Forces Operations, 
atch to Memo, Lt Col Russell Volckmann, Special Opns Div, Ofc, Ch of Psychological 
Warfare, for Brig Gen Robert A. McClure, Ch of Psychological Warfare, 24 Apr 51, sub: 
Findings and Recommendations Regarding Special Operations Training, Fort Benning, 
Ga., 370.64, Office of Chief of Special Warfare, 1951-54, RG 319, NARA; Infiltration 
and Guerrilla Warfare, T-7800, 16 Dec 50 [Army General School, Course Material]; 
Combating Guerrilla Operations, 1951 [Engineer School, Course Material]; Security 
and Defense Measures in Rear Areas, 1953 [Transportation School, Course Material]; 
Security of the Trains of Armored Units Against Guerrilla-type Activity, Committee 
12, Armored Officer Advanced Course, Armored School, 1951-1952, p. 56. All in 
Historians files, CMH. 

4N Stephen Bowman, “The Evolution of United States Army Doctrine for 
Counterinsurgency Warfare: From World War II to the Commitment of Combat Units 
in Vietnam” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1985), p. 78; AWC curriculum pamphlets, 
1950-1960, MHI; Military Doctrines and Technique, General Directive and Problem 
Directives for Courses Five, Six, and Seven, Phase 2, AWC, 1950-1951 curriculum, 4 
Jan 51, pp. 48-54, MHI; Daniel Graham, Let’s Get Acquainted with Guerrillas (Student 
paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1955-1956), p. 3. 

49 Ironically, during the late 1950s ROTCM 145-60 provided some of the best cov¬ 
erage of counterinsurgency in Army manuals, since it had been based largely on the 
original FM 31-20 of 1951, rather than the less inspiring manuals of the later years. 
See Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Manual (ROTCM) 145-60, Small Unit Tactics, 
Including Communications, 1954, pp. 414-18, and republished in 1958, pp. 402-16. 

50 See, for example, Program of Instruction (POI), Military Government Advanced 
Course, Provost Marshal General’s School, Camp Gordon, Ga., Nov 54; Rear Area 
Defense, Lesson Plan MG 1783, Provost Marshal General’s School, 1954; Unit and 
Team Tactics, Lesson Plan 1210, Civil Affairs and Military Government School, 1958; 
German and Japanese CAMG in World War Two, Lesson Plan 1103, Civil Affairs and 
Military Government School, 1958; Defense of Rear Areas, Adjutant General’s School, 


176 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


Special Text (ST) 12-170, 1958; Defense of Rear Areas, U.S. Army, ST 55-190, 1958. 
All in Historians files, CMH. 

Reseai ch sponsoied by the Army and other Department of Defense agencies pro¬ 
duced a number of studies regarding Communist Chinese theories of guerrilla warfare 
during the 1950s. See the “Studies and Monographs” section of the select bibliogra¬ 
phy for examples. Other discussions of Communist tactics include Robert Rigg, Red 
Chinese Fighting Hordes (Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing Co., 1952), pp. 
58, 180—82, 187-90, 224-27; Robert Rigg, “Red Parallel: The Tactics of Ho and Mao,” 
U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal 5 (January 1955): 28-31; S. J. Watson, “A Study 
of Revolution," Military Review 35 (May 1955): 7-14; Gene Hanrahan, “The Chinese 
Red Army and Guerrilla Warfare,” U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal 1 (February 
1951): 10-13; Edward Downey, “Theory of Guerrilla Warfare,” Military Review 39 
(May 1959): 53—54; George Jordan, “Objectives and Methods of Communist Warfare,” 
Military Review 39 (January 1960): 50-59. 

2 Quoted words from Beebe, “Beating the Guerrilla,” p. 18. For examples of articles 
and student papers that related these themes, see “War Against Partisans,” Military Review 
38 (June 1958): 88; Samuel B. Griffith, “Guerrilla,” Antiaircraft Journal 93 (September- 
October 1950): 15-18, and (November-December 1950): 50-53; Murphy, “Principles 
of Anti-Guerrilla Warfare”; “Guerrilla Warfare,” Military Review 37 (September 1957): 
95-101; Virgil Ney, “Guerrilla War and Modern Strategy,” Orbis (Spring 1958): 66-83; 
Bashore, “Dual Strategy”; Collier, “Partisans”; Bruce Palmer, Jr., The Modem Role of 
Unconventional Warfare (Student paper, AWC, 1952), 370.64, Office of Chief of Special 
Warfare, RG 319, NARA; John Roddy, “Anti-Guerrilla Warfare” (Student thesis, AWC, 
1955); Thomas Williams, Critique of Mao’s ‘On the Protracted War’ (Student paper, 
AWC, 1959); Robert Mathe, “Revolutionary War” (Student thesis, AWC, 1959); Edgar 
McGee, Small Unit Defense Against Guerrilla Forces (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry 
School, 1955-56); William Tausch, What Should Be the Anti-guerrilla Warfare Doctrine 
for the Battle Group? (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1958); Lloyd Van Court, 
“Counterguerrilla Operations with Intelligence Support” (Student thesis, AWC, 1957); 
William Dodds, “Anti-Guerrilla Warfare” (Student thesis, AWC, 1955). 

Booth, “The Pattern That Got Lost,” pp. 62-63; Waller Booth, “Operation 
Swamprat,” U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal 1 (October 1950): 23-26. For another 
example of the early use of guerrillas in an Army exercise, see Robert Rigg, “The 
Guerrilla: A Factor in War,” Armored Cavalry Journal 58 (November 1949): 4. For an 
early proposal regarding counterguerrilla training, see Memo, Lt Col Adams for Adj 
Gen, 3 Jul 50, sub: Proposed Anti-guerrilla Training, with atch, 4th Ind, HQ, Infantry 
Center, for Ch, Army Field Forces, 12 Sep 50, sub: Proposed Anti-guerrilla Training, 
Historians files, CMH. 

54 Memos, Ofc, Ch of Psychological Warfare, for ACS, G-3, 2 Mar 55, sub: 
Adequacy of Antiguerrilla Training in the Army, and ACS, G-3, for CG, CONARC, 14 
Mar 55, sub: Anti-guerrilla Training. Both in 040 ORO, G-3, 1955, RG 319, NARA. 
Atch to Memo, Lt Gen James E. Moore, Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations 
(DCSOPS), for CSA, 31 Jul 58, sub: U.S. Army Guerrilla Warfare Activities, 370.64, 
CSA, 1948-62, RG 319, NARA; Army Training Program (ATP) 7-200, Army Training 
Program for Infantry Rifle Company and Airborne Infantry Rifle Company, 21 Apr 54, 
p. 25; Army Subject Schedule (ASubjScd) 21-26, Squad Patrolling, 5 Jul 55; ASubjScd 
7-2, Rifle Squad Tactical Training, 22 Aug 55; ASubjScd 7-2, Rifle Squad Tactical 
Training, 20 Mar 59; ASubjScd 21-16, Anti-infiltration and Antiguerrilla Warfare 


177 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Training, 29 Sep 55; ASubjScd 33-11, Anti-infiltration and Antiguerrilla Training, 22 
Jun 56; Richard Rogers, Small Unit Defense Against Guerrillas (Student paper, IOAC, 
Infantry School, 1955-56), pp. 10-11; Memo, Col Frank W. Norris, Secretary of the 
General Staff (SGS), for Col Robert G. Fergusson, Naval War College, 29 Nov 60, 
370.64, CSA, 1955-62, RG 319, NARA. 

55 ASubjScd 30-38, Population Control, 1956; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, 
p. 51; Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry, pp. 139^40; FM 21-50, Ranger Training, 1957, 
pp. 6-7; An. B, Brief History of Ranger Course, atch to Rpt, Infantry School, 16 Feb 
70, sub: Mandatory Ranger Training, CONARC, RG 338, NARA. Counterguerrilla 
training advice could be found in such publications as FM 31-20, Operations Against 
Guerrilla Forces, 1951, pp. 122-24, 139^11; FM 31-15, Operations Against Airborne 
Attack, Guerrilla Action, and Infiltration, 1953, pp. 76-78; Collier, “Partisans,” pp. 7-8; 
FM 30-101, Aggressor, The Maneuver Enemy, 1959, pp. 82-84; FM 30-104, Aggressor 
Representation, 1953, pp. 3—5, 42^43; FM 30—102, Handbook on Aggressor Military 
Forces, chg 1, Jul 48, and subsequent editions of this manual: Aug 50, p. 137; Mar 51, 
p. 137; Feb 59, p. 150-54; and Jun 60, pp. 164-69. 

56 Douglas Stickley, Jr., Are We Giving Just ‘Lip Service’ to Night Training? (Student 
paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1955-56). 

57 Quote from FM 30-104, Aggressor Representation, 1953, p. 42. Lloyd Norman 
and John Spore, “Big Push in Guerrilla Warfare,” Army 12 (March 1962): 36. 

58 Charles Simpson, Inside the Green Berets: The First Thirty Years (Novato, Calif.: 
Presidio, 1983), pp. 44-46; Dillon, Concept for Antiguerrilla Operations, pp. 3^4; 
Tropic Lightning, 1 Oct 41-1 Oct 66, 25th Infantry Division (n.p., n.d.), pp. 148-54. 

59 Donald Carter, “From G.I. to Atomic Soldier: The Development of U.S. Army 
Tactical Doctrine, 1945-1956” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1987), pp. 55, 121- 
24, 135-38, 159, 188; W. W. Culp, “Resident Courses of Instruction,” Military Review 
36 (May 1956): 17, 20. In 1956 special operations instruction accounted for 42 of the 
1,219 hours in Leavenworth’s regular course. This should not be minimized because it 
represented a sixfold increase over prior years and placed special operations ninth out 
of the twenty-six subjects covered at Leavenworth in terms of total course time. On the 
other hand, the special operations course virtually ignored counterguerrilla warfare. 

60 Carter, “G.I. to Atomic Soldier,” pp. 170-78; Bowman, “Evolution of Army 
Doctrine,” p. 74. One of the reasons that Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, Maj. Gen. James 
M. Gavin, gave for rejecting proposals in 1954 for creating special counterguerrilla units 
in the Army’s force structure was that the Army was already heavily engaged in restruc¬ 
turing for atomic war and did not have the resources to create additional specialized 
formations. Other reasons included a belief that conventional troops could effectively 
combat guerrillas, especially if they were properly trained and organized for theater 
conditions, and America’s policy of relying on indigenous forces as the first line of 
defense against Communist irregulars. Memos, G-3 for G-2, 2 Apr 54, sub: Guerrilla 
Type Warfare, and G-2 for G-3, c. 1954, sub: Guerrilla Type Warfare; MFR, G-3, c. Apr 
54, sub: Guerrilla Type Warfare. All in 370.64, G-3, 1954, RG 319, NARA. Memo, Col 
Fitzhugh H. Chandler, Chairman, Project Advisory Gp Parabel, for the ACS, G-3, 20 
Oct 54, sub: Periodic Report on Project Parabel, 040, G-3, 1954, RG 319, NARA. 

61 George Lincoln and Amos Jordan, Jr., “Limited War and the Scholars,” Military 
Review 37 (January 1958): 50-60; William Olson, “The Concept of Small Wars,” Small 
Wars and Insurgencies 1 (April 1990): 39-46; Michael Cannon, “The Development 
of the American Theory of Limited War, 1945-63,” Armed Forces and Society 9 (Fall 


178 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 

1992): 78-80; Harry Coles, “Strategic Studies Since 1945, the Era of Overthink,” 
Military Review 53 (April 1973): 6. The two books were Robert Osgood, Limited War: 
The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 

and Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York- Harper & Bros 
1957). 

Fiist quote from Readiness tor the Little War, Optimum Integrated Strategy,” 
Military Review 37 (April 1957): 23. Other quotes from ibid., p. 26. Osgood, Limited 
War, p. 237. 

; Q uote from “Readiness for the Little War,” p. 25, and see also pp. 20-21. 

64 Donald Howard, “Anti-Guerrilla Operations in Asia” (Student thesis, AWC, 1956), 
p. 27. Harold Clem, Collective Defense and Foreign Assistance (Washington, D.C.: 
Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1968), p. 117; Rpt, JCS, Sep 63, sub: Development 
Status of Military Counterinsurgency Programs, Including Counterguerrilla Forces, 
as of 1 August 1963, p. V-157; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms , pp. 86, 88; McClintock, 
Inst) aments of Statecraft, pp. 188—89; Memo, Special Gp, Counterinsurgency, for the 
President, 20 Jul 62, sub: Report of the Committee on Police Assistance Programs, p. 
1, Historians files, CMH. 

65 United States President's Committee To Study the United States Military Assistance 
Program , vol. 2, Supplement to the Committee Report (Washington, D.C: Government 
Printing Office, 1959), pp. 56-58. 

66 Willard Barber and C. Neale Ronning, Internal Security and Military Power, 
Counterinsurgency and Civic Action in Latin America (Columbus: Ohio State University 
Press, 1966), pp. 65-66, 71, 74, 78-84; John DePauw and George Luz, eds., Winning 
the Peace: The Strategic Implications of Military Civic Action (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: 
Strategic Studies Institute, 1990), p. 10; Kyre and Kyre, Military Occupation , pp. 14-15; 
Edward Glick, Peaceful Conflict: The Non-Military Use of the Military (Harrisburg, Pa.: 
Stackpole Books, 1967), pp. 68-69. 

67 Special Operations Research Office (SORO), Symposium Proceedings. The 
U.S. Army’s Limited-War Mission and Social Science Research (Washington, D.C.: 
American University, 1962), p. 74; Msg, DEF 976945 to U.S. Commander in Chief, 
Europe (USCINCEUR), et al„ 11 May 60, 370.64, CSA, 1955-62, RG 319, NARA; 
Harry Walterhouse, A Time to Build: Military Civic Action—Medium for Economic 
Development and Social Reform (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1964), 

p. 116. 

68 First quote from Shafer, Deadly Paradigms , p. 19. Second quote from Memo, 
SGS for General Lemnitzer, 9 Sep 58, sub: Army Guerrilla Warfare Activities, 370.64, 
CSA, 1948-62, RG 319, NARA. Third quote from Christopher Cheng, Airmohility: The 
Development of a Doctrine (Westport, Conn.: Frederick A. Praeger, 1994), p. 72. Memo, 
Brig Gen Charles H. Bonesteel, SGS, for DCSOPS, 10 Jul 58, sub: U.S. Army Guerrilla 
Warfare Activities, 370.64, 1955-62, RG 319, NARA; Ltr, George H. Roderick, Actg 
Secy of the Army, to Secy of Def, 30 Dec 60, sub: Counter-Guerrilla Training Under 
the Military Assistance Program, 370.64, CSA, 1955-62, RG 319, NARA; Memo, 
Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD), Internal Security Affairs (ISA), for Chairman, 
JCS, 5 May 60, sub: Counterguerrilla Training Provided Under the MAP; Briefing Paper 
for Chairman, JCS, on a Report by the J-5 Operations Deputies Meeting, Tuesday, 13 
September 1960, agenda item 3. Both in 3360, JCS, RG 218, NARA. Previous Army 
instruction on counterguerrilla operations and small wars had been given as subsets of 
other courses. 


179 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


64 Schafer, Deadly Paradigm , p. 17; NSC 90, A Report to the National Security 
Council by the Secretary of State on Collaboration with Friendly Governments on 
Operations Against Guerrillas, 26 Oct 50, 370.64, G-3, 1950-55, RG 319, NARA. 

70 Quote from Paul Linebarger, “They Call ’Em Bandits in Malaya,” US. Army 
Combat Forces Journal 1 (January 1951): 29. Memo, Maj Gen John Williams, ACS 
for Intelligence, 4 Mar 60, sub: U.S. Military Forces Benefits Resulting from British 
Anti-guerrilla Warfare in Malaya, Historians files, CMH. About a half-dozen articles 
on Malaya appeared in Army journals during the 1950s, while other articles made 
reference to it. A few students in Army schools wrote papers on the British experi¬ 
ence, and the Army either commissioned or had access to a number of other studies 
on Malaya. For examples of studies, see the “Studies and Monographs” section of the 
select bibliography. 

1 For examples of Army-sponsored translations, studies, or lectures on Indochina, 
see Translation, Army G-2, Combat Methods of the Viet Minh in Villages, 1952; 
Translation, Army G-2, Tactics and Combat Methods of the Viet Minh, 1953; 
Translation, Army G-2, Practical Guide for Pacification, 1959; Translation, Army 
G-2, Special Training in Counterguerrilla Warfare, 1959; George Tanham, “The Likely 
Nature of Enemy Operational Concepts in Asia,” AWC lecture, 1958. All at MHI. See 
also George Tanham, Doctrine and Tactics of Revolutionary Warfare: The Viet Minh 
in Indochina, RM 2395 (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1959); Andre Souyris, “An 
Effective Counterguerrilla Procedure,” Military Review 36 (March 1957): 86-90; Lamar 
Prosser, “The Bloody Lessons of Indochina,” U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal 5 (June 
1955): 23-30; Paul Linebarger, “Indochina: The Bleeding War,” in Modern Guerrilla 
Warfare, ed. Osanka, pp. 245-52; Bernard Fall, “Communist Organization and Tactics,” 
Military Review’ 36 (October 1956): 1-11; idem, “Indochina, The Last Year of the War, 
The Navarre Plan,” Military Review 36 (December 1956): 48-56. 

12 Considering that the doctrine of guerre revolutionnaire only gradually emerged in 
French publications between 1956 and 1961, the U.S. Army moved quickly to acquire 
and translate these texts. The Army even translated the entire February-March 1957 
issue of the Revue Militaire d’Information, which was devoted to guerre revolution¬ 
naire. See Translation, Army G-2, Revolutionary Warfare, 1958, MHI; Ximenes, 
“Revolutionary Warfare,” Military Review’ 37 (August 1957): 103-08; Colonel 
Nemo, “The Place of Guerrilla Action in War,” Military Review 37 (November 1957): 
99-107. American analyses of French doctrine included Robert Rigg, “Twilight 
War,” Military Review 40 (November 1960): 28-32; George Kelly, “Revolutionary 
War and Psychological Action,” Military’ Review 40 (October 1960): 4-13; Mathe, 
“Revolutionary War”; SORO, Insurgents and Counterinsurgent Strengths and Tactics 
in Tunisia, 1952-1956 (Washington, D.C.: SORO, 1956). For a general discussion 
of French doctrine, see Shafer, Deadly Paradigm, pp. 138-65, and Chester Cooper, 
The American Experience with Pacification in Vietnam, 3 vols. (Institute for Defense 
Analyses, 1972), 3:95-113. 

73 First quote from Max Millikin and Walt Rostow, A Proposal: Key to an Effective 
Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Bros., 1957), p. 6. Second quoted words from Walt 
Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (New York: 
Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 7. Geoffrey Fairbairn, “Approaches to Counter- 
Insurgency Thinking Since 1947,” South-East Asian Spectrum 2 (January 1974): 27. 
For a general discussion and critique of American theories of political development, see 
Packenham, Liberal America', Shafer, Deadly Paradigm, pp. 48-85. 


180 


The Development of Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1945-1960 


4 John F. Kennedy, The Strategy of Peace (New York: Harper & Bros., 1960), pp. 
60-64; Latham, Modernization as Ideology, pp. 1-8, 30-45, 56-66. 

Maxwell Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper & Bros., 1960); James 
Gavin, War and Peace in the Space Age (New York: Harper & Bros., 1958); Russell 
Weigley, History of the United States Army (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 
1984), p. 526; Coles, “Strategic Studies,” pp. 8-9. 

76 FM 7-100, The Infantry Division, 1960, pp. 247-54. 

First quote from Presentation, General Decker to General Staff Council, 25 Nov 
60, sub: The U.S. Army and National Security, 1960-70, p. 11, DCSOPS, 1960, RG 319, 
NARA (hereafter cited as Decker Presentation). Other quotes from ibid., p. ii. 

s First quote from Rpt, U.S. Army, 7 Dec 60, sub: Strategic Army Study (STARS- 
70), the U.S. Army and National Security, 1960-70, p. 32, DCSOPS, 1961, RG 319, 
NARA (hereafter cited as STARS-70). Second quote from Decker Presentation, p. 13. 

79 Quote from STARS-70, p. 116. 

80 Decker Presentation, pp. ii, 16-18; STARS-70, pp. 129-31, 143^14. 

81 French influence was apparent in a general way in the depiction of the problem 
as a revolutionary, largely unconventional struggle against international communism. 
British influence was more discemable, as certain terms employed in the manuscript, 
like special police, special constables, and special intelligence personnel were all tenns 
employed by the British. McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, p. 215. 

s: Quotes from Special Warfare Division, ODCSOPS, Counter Insurgency Operations: 
A Handbook for the Suppression of Communist Guerrilla/Terrorist Operations, 1 Dec 
60, pp. 2-3, and see also p. 25, Historians files, CMH. 

83 Quote from ibid., p. 21, and see also pp. 2, 22, 40^41. 

84 Quotes from ibid., p. 40, and see also pp. 22-26, 38-41. 

Quote from ibid., p. 30, and see also pp. 22-26, 31-34, 45. 

86 Memo, Lt Gen John C. Oakes, DCSOPS, for ASD, Financial Management (FM), 
29 Nov 60, sub: Counter-Guerrilla Activities; Memo, Brig Gen Edward G. Lansdale, 
Dep Asst to the Secy of Def (Special Opns), for Asst Secy of the Army George H. 
Roderick, 21 Oct 60, sub: Counter-Guerrilla Activities; Memo, Lt Gen John C. Oakes, 
DCSOPS, for ASD (FM), 21 Dec 60, sub: Counter-Guerrilla Activities. All in 370.64, 
CSA, RG 319, NARA. Talking Paper, Unconventional Warfare Br, J-5, JCS, 21 Feb 61, 
sub: Service Guerrilla Warfare and Counterguerrilla Warfare Capabilities and Training, 
031.1, Nov 60-Dec 61, Chairman Lemnitzer file, JCS, RG 218, NARA; FM 100-1, 
Doctrinal Guidance, chg 1, 10 Jan 61, p. 23-102. 

87 Quote from FM 100-1, Doctrinal Guidance, chg 1,10 Jan 61, p. 23-101. 

ss First quote from ibid., p. 23-103. Second quote from ibid., p. 23-902, and see also 
pp. 23-104, 23-901. 

89 Quote from ibid., p. 23-105, and see also pp. 23-103, 23-104. 

90 Ibid., pp. 23-105, 23-106, 23-701. 

91 Ibid., pp. 23-103, 23-104, 23-501, 23-502. 


181 

































































Cold War Contingency 
Operations, 1958-1965 

President Eisenhower may not have wanted to involve U.S. 
ground forces in foreign imbroglios, but neither he nor his succes¬ 
sors could ignore the utility of military power in conducting foreign 
policy. Nor could the Army, as both history and prudence dictated 
that it be prepared to undertake limited contingency operations in 
support of American diplomacy. After the Korean War the Army tried 
to improve its capability for performing contingency missions, at 
least to the extent permitted by the limited budgets of the Eisenhower 
years. Most of these arrangements were of a conventional nature and 
were undertaken to facilitate the Army’s capacity either to wage war 
or to reinforce forward-deployed forces in Germany and Korea. Yet 
any improvements in the Army’s ability to project power also made 
it a more capable body for performing missions of a diplomatic or 
constabulary nature. These initiatives were still in their infancy when 
President Eisenhower put the Army’s skills in coercive diplomacy to 
the test by sending it to intervene in the Lebanese Civil War. 

Lebanon, 1958 

America’s involvement in the Lebanese Civil War stemmed from 
President Eisenhower’s desire to prevent the wave of radical, anti- 
Western nationalism that was sweeping through the Middle East in the 
mid-1950s from engulfing Lebanon, a nation riven by deep political, 
factional, and religious conflicts. Concerned that the Soviet Union was 
exploiting Arab nationalism to cover Communist activity in the region, 


183 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


in 1957 Eisenhower declared that the United States would provide mili¬ 
tary assistance to any Middle Eastern nation threatened by international 
communism. Camille Chamoun, the pro-Western, Christian president 
of Lebanon, was the only Arab leader to embrace the Eisenhower 
Doctrine. This action, however, inflamed Lebanon’s Muslim commu¬ 
nity, which accused Chamoun of violating the country’s neutralist poli¬ 
cies that had kept that deeply divided country at peace. (Map 8) 

Charges of fraud in Lebanon’s 1957 legislative elections and 
Chamoun’s ambition to be reelected for a second term in 1958 despite 
constitutional prohibitions heightened tensions within Lebanon. So too 
did the announcement in Eebruary 1958 by Egypt, Syria, and Yemen 
that they were forming a United Arab Republic (UAR), an entity that 
both Eisenhower and Chamoun regarded with suspicion, but which 
was warmly received by proponents of pan-Arabism in Lebanon. The 
situation came to a head in May when one of Chamoun’s critics was 
assassinated. Rioting erupted in the Lebanese capital of Beirut that 
quickly took on the trappings of a civil war. The Lebanese Army under 
the command of General Luad Shihab adopted a neutral stance, guard¬ 
ing government buildings but otherwise standing aside as Chamoun’s 
supporters and opponents battled in the streets. Chamoun accused the 
United Arab Republic of arming his opponents and inflaming Muslim 
sentiments with radio broadcasts calling for Lebanon’s absorption 
into the new pan-Arab state, and when UAR sympathizers overthrew 
the pro-Western ruler of Iraq, Chamoun used the incident to request 
American intervention on 14 July. Tearing that a similar coup might 
occur in Lebanon, Eisenhower immediately ordered U.S. troops to 
Beirut, despite Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Lorce General Nathan F. 
Twining’s warning that “we may be there for ten years or longer.” 1 

The celerity with which the president acted caught the armed forces 
only partially prepared. Consequently, U.S. troops entered Lebanon in 
piecemeal fashion, a dangerous maneuver given the fact that the Lebanese 
Army might well have chosen to defend Lebanon’s territorial sovereignty 
despite Chamoun’s plea for intervention. Fortunately, the first troops to 
wade ashore on 15 July—the 2d Battalion, 2d Marines—faced nothing 
more dangerous than bikini-clad women and boys aggressively hawking 
bottles of soda pop. After securing a beachhead that included the national 
airport, the marines peacefully entered Beirut the following day escorted 
by the Lebanese Army, a development made possible only by last- 
minute negotiations between the expedition commander, Admiral James 
L. Holloway, Jr.; U.S. Ambassador Robert M. McClintock; and General 
Shihab that narrowly averted a clash between American and Lebanese 
forces. Meanwhile, more marines streamed into Lebanon, followed on 19 


184 




Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 



July by soldiers from the 24th Infantry Division’s 187th Airborne Battle 
Group. Additional 24th Division units arrived in ensuing days until the 
United States had approximately 14,000 men on the ground—over 8,000 
soldiers and nearly 6,000 marines—not counting air units and the U.S. 
Sixth Fleet offshore. 2 


185 






















Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Soldiers gain their bearings in Lebanon. 

Eisenhower gave the military a threefold mission. The first task, to 
protect American life and property, was concrete and easily achieved. 
Thanks to the cooperation of Lebanese authorities, the United States 
had no trouble placing guards at American facilities as well as other 
vital installations. The second goal, to dissuade either the United Arab 
Republic or the Soviet Union from meddling in Lebanon’s internal 
affairs, was more nebulous but readily achieved, since neither entity 
made any overt moves to intervene. The president’s final objective, 
to thwart any attempt to overthrow the Lebanese government, proved 
the thorniest. Eisenhower hoped to achieve stability without having to 
commit U.S. forces in direct support of any particular political faction. 
Of course, by using U.S. forces to protect the government, the United 
States had already meddled in Lebanon’s internal affairs. Nevertheless, 
Eisenhower maintained some room for maneuver by refusing to endorse 
Chamoun’s bid for a second term. 3 

Although Marine patrols occasionally traveled as far as 32 kilo¬ 
meters inland, for the most part U.S. forces operated in a narrow 
area 20 kilometers wide and 16 kilometers deep that included Beirut, 
the international airport, and the landing beaches. By mutual agree¬ 
ment, most Americans remained outside of the city and confined 
their activities to garrisoning key facilities and conducting combined 
patrols with the Lebanese Army along roads the Americans used to 
maintain communications between their outposts. The Lebanese Army 
assumed positions between the Americans and those sections of Beirut 


186 







Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 



An American and Lebanese 
soldier man a joint checkpoint. 


controlled by radical Muslim ele¬ 
ments, thereby minimizing the 
danger of a clash. Although the 
situation was sometimes tense and 
always unpredictable, the soldiers 
soon settled into a fairly unevent¬ 
ful routine of patrol and sentry 
duty. Snipers frequently menaced 
the troops, but no conflict of any 
size developed, thanks to Shihab’s 
buffer forces and to strict rules of 
engagement. These rules prohib¬ 
ited U.S. soldiers from shooting 
unless they were fired upon, and 
then only if they could clearly 
identify the source of the fire and 
respond without unduly risking 
innocent lives. 4 

The expeditionary force also tried to discourage confrontation by 
overawing potential adversaries. Heavily armored patrols, live-fire 
exhibitions, and choreographed training exercises all served to dem¬ 
onstrate American power. Strict codes of conduct that demanded good 
behavior, neat uniforms, and correct martial bearing likewise helped 
impress the population. U.S. efforts to influence the Lebanese Army 
were less successful, as the Lebanese politely declined most offers of 
U.S. training assistance.' 

Two weeks after the intervention began, Lebanon held presidential 
elections. Under American pressure, Chamoun did not run and instead 
supported Shihab, who won the election and quickly set about creat¬ 
ing a compromise cabinet. Shihab’s reputation for neutrality and his 
efforts to reach out to all sides mollified most, though not all, of the 
opposition. Unrest continued, albeit at increasingly lower levels, until 
September when pro-UAR elements inside Beirut finally disbanded. 
By the end of the month the United States withdrew all of the marines 
from Lebanon. The Army contingent soldiered on for another month 
before completing the withdrawal on 25 October. Shortly thereafter, 
Shihab renounced the Eisenhower Doctrine.' 

In the words of Ambassador McClintock, the Lebanon interven¬ 
tion proved to be “that rarest of military miracles: the making of an 
omelet without breaking the eggs.” In just 102 days the United States 
had stopped the fighting and paved the way for peaceful elections and 
a constitutional resolution to the crisis. The price of success was $200 


187 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


million, not counting millions more in economic and military aid, and 
one American life. As far as was known, U.S. forces did not cause a sin¬ 
gle casualty. A wise policy of not backing Chamoun’s bid for a second 
term, capable negotiating on the part of American diplomatic person¬ 
nel, a cautious employment of U.S. ground forces, and the indispens¬ 
able support provided by the Lebanese Army under General Shihab 
had, along with a good deal of luck, facilitated the positive outcome. 
The brief intervention had not resolved Lebanon’s deep social and 
sectarian problems, fissures that would eventually erupt into renewed 
civil war and foreign intervention in the 1970s and 1980s. But for the 
present, the intervention had achieved its purpose. 7 

Although the Army had performed well, the operation neverthe¬ 
less revealed many weaknesses in conception and execution. Many of 
the troubles that plagued the intervention were recurring problems that 
pertained to all forms of contingency operations. Included among the 
lessons learned in Lebanon were the need for more detailed, yet flex¬ 
ible, plans; the necessity of adhering to proper regimens governing the 
loading and shipping of equipment; and the benefits to be gained by 
frequently practicing for contingency operations. Interservice coordi¬ 
nation, though it improved over the course of the operation, had been 
weak at the outset, particularly since the plans had failed to provide 
for an overall ground force commander. Rather, the Marine force com¬ 
mander, Brig. Gen. Sidney S. Wade, and the Army contingent com¬ 
mander, Brig. Gen. David W. Gray, had operated independently under 
the loose coordination of Admiral Holloway until 24 July, nine days 
into the operation, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff finally sent Army 
Maj. Gen. Paul D. Adams to oversee the land effort. 8 

The command oversight mirrored other problems that, taken 
together, had seriously compromised the ability of the armed forces 
to act as an effective instrument of national policy during the early 
days of the intervention. To begin with, there had been virtually no 
direct communication between the Navy and Ambassador McClintock 
during the initial hours of the operation. The communication break¬ 
down made adjusting military plans to changing political realities 
difficult and could easily have produced grave consequences. The 
eventual establishment of a single ground commander in the person of 
General Adams and the creation of a Lebanese-American Civil Affairs 
Commission with representatives from the Lebanese government, the 
embassy, and the American military greatly facilitated coordination, 
as did the arrival of Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy 
as President Eisenhower’s special representative. Billed as a “five-star 
diplomat” in a theater in which the highest-ranking military officer 


188 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 



A U.S. tank clears away an insurgent roadblock. 


(Admiral Holloway) was of four-star rank, Murphy was in a position 
to oversee both the ambassador and the armed forces, thereby unifying 
the politico-military effort. 9 

Though the command structure functioned adequately in the end, 
logistical issues were an enduring problem. The Army’s logistical sys¬ 
tem was geared toward pushing large quantities of supplies forward 
in support of combat operations on hostile shores, and it proved too 
cumbersome and inflexible for a limited contingency in which there 
was virtually no fighting. Indeed, zealous logisticians soon buried the 
small intervention force under nearly 50,000 tons of supplies. Storing 
and handling this vast mountain of equipment was a major headache, 
as was the task of protecting it against enterprising Lebanese pilfer¬ 
ers. Because of the paucity of combat troops in Lebanon, General 
Gray required supply and service personnel to protect the depots, with 
unhappy results. Despite the fact that doctrine had long required that 
support troops be prepared to defend themselves against infiltrators and 
irregulars, the service elements loudly protested security details, which 
they performed with indifference. 

Unimaginative thinking with regard to security also manifested itself 
in the initial plans for the defense of the Army’s main base in Lebanon, 
the international airport. General Gray’s staff wanted to disperse U.S. 
paratroopers in company-size packets around the airport as called for in 
conventional doctrine for the defense of an airfield. When he learned of 
this, Gray immediately redrew the plans to create a much tighter perimeter 


189 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


designed to stop snipers, fanatics, and small bands of infiltrators—the type 
of threat he believed posed the greatest danger to his forces. The alteration 
was a wise one, though it illustrated the lack of forethought Gray’s planners 
had given to the unconventional aspects of their mission. 

Planning was most inadequate in the realms of civil affairs and intel¬ 
ligence. The Army entered Lebanon without either a status of forces 
agreement between the United States and Lebanon—a major impedi¬ 
ment to smooth relations when operating inside a sovereign country—or 
any detailed information as to the political and military situation on the 
ground. Fortunately, the U.S. embassy in Beirut was still functioning and 
was able to provide the military with a great deal of assistance on politi¬ 
cal and intelligence matters, without which the expedition would have 
faced grave difficulties. Although the Army successfully implemented its 
traditional creed of good conduct by enforcing troop discipline, by pro¬ 
viding humanitarian assistance, and by compensating Lebanese property 
owners for damages and inconveniences, it concluded from the experi¬ 
ence that future intervention forces must be given larger civil affairs 
staffs and more detailed politico-military intelligence. 10 

Perhaps the most embarrassing failure occurred in public relations. 
Although the United States Information Service (USIS) was in charge 
of the overall public information effort, each of the military services 
was to provide its own public affairs staff to help manage the informa¬ 
tion “war” in Lebanon. Unfortunately, General Gray had decided not 
to include his public information staff in the initial contingent that 
deployed to Lebanon since none of his public affairs personnel were 
parachute qualified. This left him without anyone during the initial 
days of the operation to handle the pack of newsmen who had descend¬ 
ed on Lebanon. The consequences were not long in coming. Soon 
after the landing, the Washington Post published photos depicting U.S. 
forces in Lebanon—one of a battle-hardened marine charging across a 
beach with a fixed bayonet, the other of a soldier sitting on a donkey 
drinking a soda. Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor was 
so upset that he immediately flew a special public affairs team from 
Washington to Beirut to perform the important task of managing press 
relations—and shaping public perceptions—for the remainder of this 
sensitive politico-military operation." 

The Emergence of Doctrine for “Situations Short of War' 

The Lebanon experience demonstrated that the Defense Department 
needed to be better prepared for limited overseas contingency opera¬ 
tions. While most of the military’s remedial efforts focused on relatively 


190 







Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 



General Taylor believed this photo of a U.S. soldier riding a burro 
created adverse publicity for the Army. 


conventional issues of joint planning, command and control, logistics, 
and interoperability, the Army did in fact examine issues peculiar to 
operations of a constabulary nature. Although the 1954 edition of FM 
100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations , had first broached the 
subjects of limited warfare and the subordination of military action to 
political and diplomatic purposes, the Army took several years to flesh 
out some basic concepts regarding peacetime contingencies. These 
ideas were just entering Army doctrinal literature at the time of the 
Lebanese crisis under the designation “situations short of war.” 

As the Army defined them, situations short of war were “military 
operations which lie in the area between normal peaceful relations and 
open hostilities between nations.” According to Army manuals, the 
United States undertook such operations to bolster a faltering govern¬ 
ment, to stabilize a restless area, to deter aggression, and to maintain 
order. Missions that the Army believed it might have to perform during 
a situation short of war included making a show of force, enforcing a 
truce, serving as an international police force, and undertaking a legally 
sanctioned occupation—in short, missions largely of a diplomatic and 
constabulary nature. 12 

For the most part, Army texts during the 1950s confined their 
discussion of situations short of war to broad principles. In part, this 


191 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


reflected a recognition by doctrine writers that such operations were too 
varied to be easily codified into rules and regulations. Moreover, the 
Army believed that many of the particulars of constabulary service— 
like riot control, civil affairs, military policing, and small-unit patrol¬ 
ling—were already adequately covered in existing doctrine. The proper 
execution of these and other functions during an overseas contingency 
was less a matter of developing new doctrine than of intelligently 
adapting existing procedures to the exigencies of the moment. 

Because peacetime contingency operations were “inherently deli¬ 
cate,” Army manuals emphasized that all personnel regardless of rank 
had to be thoroughly familiar with American policy and the implications 
of that policy when performing their duties. Recognizing that “sound 
troop discipline” was indispensable for a successful outcome, Army 
doctrine recommended that troops assigned to contingency duty be 
instructed on local laws and customs, personal conduct, and the proper 
treatment of women. Smart dress and the maintenance of a courteous, 
yet martial, bearing were integral to winning the respect of the local 
population. Army texts during the mid-1950s also counseled command¬ 
ers to prepare their men for some of the frustrations typically associated 
with politico-military operations, including long tours, enervating sentry 
duty, and shadowy foes who might employ terrorism and other irregular 
methods against U.S. forces. Strong discipline, troop indoctrination, and 
inspired leadership would help counteract corrosive influences on troop 
morale and behavior. Restraint was also a watchword, for in the words 
of one manual, “the excessive use of force can never be justified; it can 
only lead to the need to apply ever-increasing force to maintain the same 
degree of order, and to the loss of the sympathy and support of the local 
populace. If efforts to win over the local populace are not to be defeated, 
the enemy dead and wounded must be treated with respect and humanity, 
no matter how despicable the acts.” 13 

Unlike the pre-1939 Army, which had generally resented civilian 
interference in military operations and had sought to insulate com¬ 
manders from external meddling, the post-World War II Army accept¬ 
ed the premise that “in most cases, political considerations are overrid¬ 
ing.” It acceded to the State Department’s primacy on policy issues in 
short-of-war operations. It further enjoined expeditionary commanders 
to establish sound, collaborative relationships with the many entities 
that would inevitably be involved in a contingency operation, starting 
with the various service components and extending to the local repre¬ 
sentatives of the State Department and other U.S. civilian agencies, the 
armed forces of allied contingents (if present), and the civil and mili¬ 
tary officials of the country in which the operation was being under- 


192 




Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 

taken. Still, a jealous regard for professional autonomy led the Army to 
endorse the use of mission-type orders that would give an expedition 
commander considerable latitude in determining how to accomplish 
his assigned mission.” It likewise argued that “the commander on the 
spot alone is in a position to establish the degree of force that must be 
used.” Command relationships between Washington and the field and 
between civil and military authorities thus defied easy categorization 
and remained a delicate doctrinal issue. 14 

The Army believed that the division would be the basic element 
employed in contingency operations, as smaller formations would lack 
both the manpower and the administrative apparatus needed to operate 
effectively as an autonomous force. Recognizing the inherently politi¬ 
cal nature ol the contingency environment, doctrine writers recom¬ 
mended that the State Department assign an adviser to the expedition if 
a U.S. embassy was not functioning in the area of operations. A division 
operating in a situation short of war was also to receive additional civil 
affairs personnel so that it could adequately prepare civil and economic 
plans in conjunction with other U.S. agencies. Division engineers and 
service personnel would support these plans by providing humanitarian 
and construction assistance to benighted areas. Official doctrine also 
recognized the need to augment the division’s intelligence capability. 
Unlike conventional warfare, in which military intelligence tended to 
focus on the terrain and the enemy’s war-making assets, situations short 
of war required a much broader effort, to include political, historical, 
and social factors; personalities; and the causes of unrest. All sources, 
including U.S. civilian agencies and indigenous institutions, were to 
be tapped in the pursuit of information, perhaps to include the estab¬ 
lishment by the Army of its own police and clandestine intelligence 
networks. Safeguarding information, personnel, and supplies from 
the machinations of hostile agents, guerrillas, and black marketeers 
likewise required extra vigilance in the shadowy world of constabu¬ 
lary operations, where front lines and clearly defined enemies would 
be rare. These circumstances, together with the inherent sensitivity of 
politico-military operations, also raised the specter of adverse media 
relations, as the photo incident in Lebanon demonstrated. To address 
this problem, doctrine writers recommended that “within sensible 
security limitations, a cordial and straightforward treatment of corre¬ 
spondents will go far toward public understanding of the issues and it 
will facilitate accomplishment of the mission.”" 

Because doctrine for situations short of war was just being drafted 
around the time of the Lebanon intervention, few officers were famil¬ 
iar with it. 16 Nevertheless, the Lebanon experience confirmed many of 


193 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the new doctrine’s tenets, and consequently the Army expended little 
effort in revising its manuals after the Lebanon intervention. Change 1 
to FM 17-100, The Armored Division and Combat Command which 
appeared in June 1959, greatly increased that manual’s coverage of 
situations short of war but introduced little that was new. Perhaps 
based on the Lebanese experience, the manual warned that political 
considerations might restrict a commander’s freedom of action, even 
to the degree of seriously impairing the effectiveness of the operation. 
Such obstacles could be alleviated only by time-consuming negotiation. 
The manual likewise noted that “the general requirement for applica¬ 
tion of minimum necessary force to avoid unwarranted alienation of 
local populations can seriously reduce the availability of normal fire 
support to the maneuver elements. The division commander will often 
find it necessary to limit or even prohibit the use of field artillery, pri¬ 
mary tank guns, mortars, and rocket launchers except under specific 
emergency conditions.” Finally, the manual emphasized the positive 
role civil affairs officers could play in minimizing these adverse condi¬ 
tions by forming civilian-military liaison agencies as had been done 
in Lebanon. Yet beyond this the manual did not go, stating that the 
“unusual conditions posed by a situation short of war” precluded any 
attempt to prescribe more definitive procedures. 17 

Other manuals published after the Lebanese incursion likewise 
failed to break new ground. This fact drew criticism from a small 
number of officers who believed that the Army was not doing enough 
to prepare for overseas constabulary duty. Chief among the critics was 
General Gray, who in 1960 wrote an article outlining operational con¬ 
cepts for what he described as situations “short of Small War.” Although 
he admitted that the Army already had relevant doctrinal and training 
materials and that some units were indeed training for such missions, 
Gray believed that the Army needed to devote greater attention to 
constabulary subjects. The best way to do this, he felt, was to amplify 
the existing materials and publish them in a single manual devoted 
exclusively to situations short of war. Conceptually, the principles that 
Gray espoused differed little from published doctrine, though his article 
did contain useful descriptions of some of the special tactics and tech¬ 
niques he had recently used in Lebanon. These included roadblocks, 
area sweeps, town searches, urban combat, population screening, and 
show-of-force operations. 1 * 

The Army did not answer Gray’s call for a manual on situations 
short of war, although it continued to expand its coverage of the subject 
in Army texts. This movement received a significant boost in 1962, 
when the Army began publishing a new family of manuals in response 


194 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


to President Kennedy’s drive to create flexible military forces capable 
of responding to any contingency. Toward this end, the 1962 edition of 
FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations , formally adopted 
Robert Osgood’s conceptual paradigm of a “spectrum of war,” a sliding 
scale on the employment of military force to achieve national ends. All- 
out nuclear warfare lay at the most extreme end of the spectrum, from 
which point the degree of violence gradually declined along a con¬ 
tinuum through general war, limited war, and finally to the least violent 
category of conflict, cold war. The manual defined cold war as the 
sum total of political, military, economic, and psychological measures, 
short of waging general or limited war, which could be used in a power 
struggle between contending nations or coalitions. Situations short of 
war represented a subset of the cold war, “in which military force is 
moved to an area directly and is employed to attain national objectives 
in operations not involving formal open hostilities between nations,” 
but which might include combat, most probably against irregular forces 
like rioters, subversives, and guerrillas. 10 

FM 100-5 (1962) also expounded on the notion, first introduced in 
the 1954 edition, that military force must be tailored to fit the political 
objectives for which it was being employed, asserting that an operation 
was “futile unless it is directed toward the attainment of the objective 
set for it.” Broad political objectives circumscribed strategy and tactics 
alike, although the Army maintained that operations always needed to 
be conducted with sufficient strength and vigor to obtain the desired 
result. This caveat, which the manual argued did not contradict the pri¬ 
macy of national objectives, nonetheless highlighted the dynamic ten¬ 
sion over ends and means that inevitably accompanies the use of force, 
especially in limited wars and contingencies. The manual further noted 
that commanders had to demonstrate ingenuity in wrestling with the 
complex web of political, military, and geographical factors that gave 
each operation a unique cast. 20 

Having established a general context for military operations in the 
mid-twentieth century, FM 100-5 (1962) included two new chapters 
related to cold war operations: “Military Operations Against Irregular 
Forces,” which will be discussed in Chapter 6, and “Situations Short of 
War.” While the inclusion of an eight-page chapter on situations short 
of war in the Army’s prime combat manual elevated the visibility of the 
subject throughout the Army, the content of that chapter differed little 
from the doctrine propounded in earlier manuals. Both the precepts 
and the wording remained virtually unchanged. The manual envisioned 
that commanders would be subordinated to the State Department in 
all matters pertaining to political and civil affairs and that they would 


195 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


have to be prepared to coordinate their actions with a host of American 
and indigenous bureaucratic institutions. It reaffirmed the advisability 
of tailoring forces and procedures to the situation and of issuing “mis¬ 
sion-type orders” in which the commander would “be given necessary 
latitude in determining how to accomplish his assigned mission.” The 
manual highlighted the important roles that civil affairs, psychological 
warfare, and intelligence personnel played in such operations. It also 
endorsed the application of minimum force and emphasized the neces¬ 
sity of winning the support of the local population. Finally, FM 100-5 
(1962) reiterated earlier calls that, to the extent possible, contingency 
troops receive special tactical, environmental, linguistic, and cultural 
training for the specific mission in which they were to be employed. 21 

Lower-level manuals published in 1962 also expanded their cov¬ 
erage of situations short of war. Most significantly, both FM 41-10, 
Civil Affairs Operations , and FM 33-5, Psychological Operations , 
added new sections on the application of their particular arts in cold 
war environments. Reflecting the Lebanon experience, the civil affairs 
manual noted the importance of negotiating a favorable status of forces 
agreement at the earliest opportunity and endorsed using civil affairs 
personnel in a wide variety of liaison, training, and civic action roles. 
According to FM 33-5, the main function of psychological operations 
(psyops) during situations short of war was to convince the indigenous 
population that America’s actions were legal, that its intentions were 
benevolent, and that its presence would be temporary. Psychological 
operations personnel were expected to win popular support for inter¬ 
vention forces, to counter hostile propaganda, and to undermine the 
popularity of enemy irregulars. The manual also discussed the relation¬ 
ship between military and civilian information organizations, stating 
that Army psyops units would have to be prepared to operate in close 
coordination with and under the supervision of embassy personnel. 
Neither manual, however, described many tactics or techniques specifi¬ 
cally designed for contingency operations. This was in keeping with the 
premise that conventional methods, intelligently modified to the condi¬ 
tions at hand, would prove adequate. 22 

If the thrust of Army doctrine changed little between 1955 and 
1965, the Army continued to take actions to improve its cold war capa¬ 
bilities. A number of schools introduced cold war operations into their 
curriculums, including the Command and General Staff College, whose 
mission to teach mid-level staff procedures and to develop combined 
operations doctrine at the division and corps level made it the natural 
locus for contingency operations education in the Army. In 1957 the 
CGSC introduced three new courses into its curriculum: “Infantry 


196 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 

Division in a Situation Short of War, “Airborne Division in Situations 
Short of War," and “Airborne Corps in Independent Police Action." By 
the late 1950s instruction in situations short of war constituted about 7 
percent of the Fort Leavenworth curriculum. By 1962 cold war opera¬ 
tions, including situations short of war and counterinsurgency, had 
grown to encompass about 13 percent of the school’s instruction. Still, 
while Leavenworth related a great deal of information relevant for plan¬ 
ning, organizing, transporting, and supporting overseas expeditions, 
it did not delve too deeply into the conduct of military interventions 
beyond the general principles contained in the manuals. 

The school’s cold war and limited war operations courses did serve, 
however, as a vehicle for reinvigorating counterguerrilla studies at the 
college. This trend reflected the fact that Army planners believed that 
irregular warfare was the most likely threat U.S. soldiers would face in 
conducting short-of-war operations. Consequently, beginning in 1958 
and for nearly every year thereafter during the period covered by this 
volume, the Command and General Staff College included either a cold 
war or limited war counterguerrilla exercise in its curriculum. In 1958, 
for example, CGSC students reviewed a variety of sources (including 
historical treatises on World War II partisan movements and the 1944 
German manual Fighting the Guerrilla Bands ) to craft plans for a hypo¬ 
thetical American intervention in Iran to combat a Soviet-inspired tribal 
uprising. The scenario called for the “maximum use of psychological 
warfare to separate the guerrillas and the civilians ideologically," and 
an active civil affairs program in which U.S. troops would “go out of 
their way’’ to “gain the support of the civilians by doing so-called good 
works where possible by such means as lending medical assistance to 
civilians," distributing food, and undertaking other “beneficial projects 
to consolidate popular support." According to the school, these and 
other nation-building activities were “an important adjunct to military 
operations." In the meantime, the United States would arm village 
self-defense groups to insulate the population from guerrilla intimida¬ 
tion while sealing the border to prevent external aid from reaching the 
insurgents. Having denied the rebels both external and internal support, 
the plan mimicked established doctrine in seeking to destroy them 
through a combination of aggressive, highly mobile small-unit actions 
and encirclements in which artillery and tanks took a backseat to light 
infantry tactics and heliborne operations. 2 ' 

Scenarios employed in subsequent years quoted heavily from the 
now defunct FM 31-20 (1951) in considering counterguerrilla cam¬ 
paigns under a variety of circumstances, from situations where the 
United States restricted its role to providing military advice, to more 


197 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


direct interventions, to operations conducted in the course of a limited 
war in some third world country. All of these exercises stressed the 
synergistic effect of political, economic, and psychological action, 
population and resources security, clandestine intelligence, and vigor¬ 
ous, small-unit operations to isolate a guerrilla force from its sources 
of support and ultimately destroy it. Such were the tactics the United 
States would employ if its intervention forces were confronted by an 
irregular opponent. 24 

While students at the Command and General Staff College prac¬ 
ticed planning interventions designed to suppress local insurgencies, 
the Army moved ahead during the late 1950s and early 1960s to create 
the tools necessary to execute such contingencies. In 1958 the Army 
formed the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC), whose four divisions—the 
82d and 101 st Airborne Divisions and 1 st and 4th Infantry Divisions— 
were to act as a ready reserve, either to reinforce forward-deployed 
units in a general war or to provide the initial forces for a limited war 
or lesser contingency. In 1961 the Pentagon merged the STRAC into 
a new joint entity, Strike Command (STRICOM), under the command 
of General Adams, the former joint land force commander during the 
Lebanon intervention. The Strike Command drafted contingency plans, 
developed doctrine for executing contingency missions, and imposed 
training programs to ensure that the Army and Air Force units under its 
command were capable of implementing those plans and doctrines. 25 

If the creation of STRAC and STRICOM, together with upgrades 
to the Air Force’s transportation fleet, improved the Army’s ability to 
conduct contingency operations in general, the Army also began to 
look at creating contingency forces specifically for situations short of 
war. Army Chief of Staff General George H. Decker’s suggestion in 
December 1960 that the United States create two regionally oriented 
Cold War task forces, each composed of an airborne brigade and a 
Special Forces group, would have created organizations specifically 
designed for taking direct action in the lower end of the spectrum 
of war. The following year, however, Decker eliminated the airborne 
brigades from the proposed task forces, recasting them from direct 
action forces into organizations intended primarily to advise and assist 
foreign countries “in low intensity cold war situations.” The revised 
concept eventually came to fruition in 1962 in the form of Special 
Action Forces (SAFs). Each SAF consisted of a Special Forces group 
augmented by engineer, civil affairs, psychological warfare, military 
police, medical, and intelligence detachments. Although theoretically 
capable of deploying in toto during a contingency, the SAF’s primary 
mission was to provide mobile teams of area-oriented, linguistically 


198 




Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


trained experts who would supplement more conventionally oriented 
military assistance advisory groups in helping foreign armies perform 
unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency, civic action, and nation¬ 
building activities. 26 

Ultimately, the Army formed six SAFs, one each for Europe, Latin 
America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, plus a reserve. Supporting 
the Latin American, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern SAFs were 
four “backup” brigades drawn from each of the four divisions in the 
STRAC. In addition to providing added personnel from whom the SAFs 
could draw training assistance teams, the brigades were to be the initial 
spearheads for direct American action in any situation short of war that 
the supported SAF and the indigenous military could not handle. The 
backup brigades were capable of operating independently for up to five 
weeks but required significant augmentation and reinforcement for lon¬ 
ger or larger operations. Their personnel received some language and 
cultural orientation relevant to their assigned regions, plus at least six 
weeks of counterinsurgency training every year. The SAF-backup bri¬ 
gade arrangement reflected a recognition on the part of the Army of the 
benefits of having a body of linguistically capable, culturally sensitive, 
and specially trained troops available for delicate cold war operations. 
The backup brigade concept remained in force throughout the period 
considered by this study. 27 

Over the next few years the SAFs would send hundreds of training 
teams to dozens of countries to help redress socioeconomic ills and 
suppress internal unrest. In the meantime, conventional Army forces 
put their cold war training and doctrine to the test on two occasions—in 
Thailand in 1962 and the Dominican Republic in 1965. 

Doctrine at Work: Thailand and the Dominican Republic 

The 1962 deployment to Thailand had its origins in the Indochina 
War and subsequent turmoil in Thailand’s northern neighbor, Laos. 
The 1954 Geneva agreement that terminated the Indochina War had 
created a nonaligned kingdom in Laos. The newly independent state 
was deeply divided between Communist, anti-Communist, and neu¬ 
tralist factions—a situation that eventually led to civil war in 1959. The 
United States, which had been secretly providing the Royal Laotian 
Army with materiel since 1957, backed the anti-Communists by 
covertly detailing Special Forces personnel to train the Laotian Army. 
This operation continued on a clandestine basis until the United States 
formally created a military assistance group and White Star Mobile 
Training Teams in Laos in 1961. The Communists countered these 


199 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


moves by sending Soviet advisers and North Vietnamese soldiers to 
support the Laotian Communists, the Pathet Lao. Weakened by politi¬ 
cal infighting, corruption, logistical shortfalls, and inexperience, the 
Royal Laotian Army performed poorly. Even America’s newest cold 
war weapon, civic action, which U.S. Army Special Forces and civil 
affairs personnel introduced to Laos in 1957 based on Philippine prec¬ 
edents, failed to stem Communist momentum. Consequently, in 1961 
the Laotian government agreed to a shaky truce with the Pathet Lao and 
its allies in the neutralist camp. The truce, however, proved short-lived, 
for in May 1962 the Pathet Lao renewed the war by seizing the strategic 
town of Nam Tha in northwestern Laos. 28 

President Kennedy feared that the Communists might conquer 
Laos and use that country as a springboard to subvert the pro-Western 
government in neighboring Thailand. He was also reluctant to commit 
U.S. forces to a remote and ineffectively governed country. Having 
come to the conclusion that the restoration of a truly neutral, non- 
aligned Laos was the best he could hope for, the president decided to 
use military power to achieve that result. Rather than sending interven¬ 
tion troops directly into Laos, Kennedy opted to deploy U.S. forces to 
neighboring Thailand in what amounted to a show-of-force operation. 
The deployment would signal the Communists that the United States 
would not permit Laos to fall under communism. It would also boost 
the morale of anti-Communist forces in Laos and reassure Thailand, 
a Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) ally, that the United 
States would not abandon it to the approaching Communist tide. Yet by 
stopping short of direct intervention, Kennedy would also put pressure 
on the pro-Western forces in Laos to seek an accommodation with the 
neutralist faction. 2g 

To these ends and with the consent of the Thai government, 
Kennedy ordered U.S. troops to Thailand in May 1962. Col. William A. 
McKean’s 1st Battle Group, 27th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division, was 
already in Thailand on a SEATO exercise and formed the nucleus of the 
force. It was soon joined by additional 25th Division troops, a Marine 
brigade, an air squadron, and token allied contingents from Great 
Britain, Australia, and New Zealand—approximately 5,000 men in all, 
of whom 2,300 were U.S. Army personnel. Washington appointed the 
25th Infantry Division’s commander, Maj. Gen. James L. Richardson, 
to lead the expedition, which was designated Joint Task Force 116. 

The deployment proved uneventful. Whether influenced by the 
demonstration of force or not, the warring factions inside Laos quickly 
reached an accord in which they agreed to set aside their weapons 
and create a coalition government committed to a nonaligned foreign 


200 



Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 



U.S. soldiers undergo live-fire counterguerrilla training in Thailand. 


policy. The international community lent its support to the settlement 
by agreeing at Geneva that all foreign military personnel should depart 
from Laos, thereby transforming Laos—at least on paper—from battle¬ 
ground to neutral ground in the ongoing Cold War. By July the crisis 
was over. 

With no enemy to fight, the Americans spent most of their time 
building camps and airfields, conducting training, and participating in 
exercises with the Thai armed forces. They also reconnoitered much of 
northern Thailand in case they had to undertake more active operations 
on the Laotian border. Meanwhile, General Richardson kept a keen 
eye on the public relations aspects of the deployment. Soldiers of the 
25th Division repaired roads and bridges, cleared fields for farmers, 
treated the sick, hosted sporting events, and formed an amateur band 
that performed daily concerts. These and other civic actions kept Joint 
Task Force 116 in good standing with the general population during its 
sojourn in Thailand.' 1 ’ 

Washington recalled the marines in August, and the following 
month Richardson replaced the original Army contingent with Col. 
John A. Olson’s 1st Battle Group, 35th Infantry. Olson’s men remained 
in Thailand until December, when the Pentagon withdrew the task force 
altogether. The withdrawal did not, however, terminate America’s mili¬ 
tary presence in Thailand, as the United States replaced the infantrymen 
with engineers who over the next decade revamped Thailand’s logisti¬ 
cal and transportation systems to facilitate U.S. military operations 


201 








Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Soldiers from, the 27th Infantry patrol the Thai-Laotian border. 


in support of the growing conflict in Vietnam. Nor had the operation 
succeeded in resolving the Laotian conflict, for in 1963 the precari¬ 
ous agreement fell apart and the civil war resumed in earnest, fueled 
by the presence of thousands of North Vietnamese combat troops who 
remained in Laos in violation of the 1962 accords. Not wishing to vio¬ 
late the Geneva agreement openly, the United States confined itself to 
providing covert aid to the Laotian Army in the guise of training, mate¬ 
riel, and Special Forces personnel, who, under the control of the CIA, 
organized guerrilla resistance to the Communists. Ultimately, none of 
these measures were sufficient, and after a long and bitter struggle the 
Pathet Lao and their North Vietnamese allies finally swept into power 
in 1975. Joint Task Force 116 thus proved a momentarily successful use 
of force in support of what otherwise turned out to be a failed effort to 
keep communism at bay in Laos. 31 

President Kennedy’s modest deployment to Thailand had pro¬ 
ceeded peacefully. Such was not the case when his successor, Lyndon 
B. Johnson, returned to coercive diplomacy several years later, this time 
in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic was an impov¬ 
erished nation burdened by a political culture in which individuals 
battled as much for personal gain as they did for ideological reasons. 
In 1961 it entered a particularly unstable period when an assassin killed 
the country’s long-time right-wing dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo 
Molina. The following year, the United States compelled Trujillo’s ally 
and successor, Joaquin Balaguer, to resign, a move that paved the way 


202 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


for free elections and the elevation to the presidency in 1963 of Juan 
Bosch, leader ot the left-leaning reform party, Partido Revolucionario 
Dominicano (PRD). Boschs tenure proved short-lived, as military con¬ 
servatives rebelled and installed Donald Reid Cabral in his place. 

Reid might have been able to survive his unpopularity with the 
people had his efforts at reducing corruption and military spend¬ 
ing not alienated his erstwhile patrons in the armed forces, some of 
whom formed a loose cabal with other anti-Reid elements and staged 
a coup on 24 April 1965. The coup received strong support from the 
people of Santo Domingo, the nation’s capital. Urged into action by 
the PRD and other leftist organizations, including the island’s three 
Communist parties, the city’s residents took to the streets in sup¬ 
port of Reid’s ouster, thrusting the city into chaos. After capturing 
Reid, the Constitutionalists, as the rebels called themselves, installed 
a provisional government under PRD politician Jose Rafael Molina 
Urena. The situation quickly unraveled as the victors began to squabble 
among themselves over the ultimate disposition of the government. 
Although many hoped that Bosch would return from exile and resume 
the presidency, others championed Balaguer or favored establishing 
a military junta. The anti-Bosch elements began to defect from the 
Constitutionalists’ cause when units of the armed forces hostile to 
Bosch, dubbed Loyalists, staged a counterattack that caused Molina 
Urena to flee the country. Constitutionalist forces under the command 
of Col. Francisco Caamano, however, managed to stall the Loyalist 
offensive, and the country gradually slipped toward civil war. Unable 
to retake Santo Domingo on their own, the Loyalists changed tactics, 
pledging to hold elections if the United States would intervene on their 
behalf. After evacuating many foreigners from Santo Domingo on 27 
April and deploying 500 marines on the twenty-eighth to provide addi¬ 
tional security, President Johnson decided to intervene directly in the 
Dominican Civil War." 2 

Johnson’s motives for launching the intervention were complex. 
Although American authorities were unenthusiastic about Bosch, 
the United States did not oppose his return. Moreover, Johnson truly 
wished to promote democracy in the Dominican Republic and had 
no desire to return the country to the dictatorships and juntas of the 
past. But reports from Santo Domingo seemed to indicate that the 
Communists were behind much of the unrest inside the city and that 
they were using the rebellion to mask their own plans to seize control 
of the country. In reality, U.S. intelligence greatly overestimated the 
influence of the Communists within the Constitutionalist camp. But the 
prospect of allowing the revolution to take its course, only to find out 


203 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Residents of Santo Domingo express confusion over 
the arrival of U.S. troops. 


at the end of the day that it was indeed controlled by the Communists, 
frightened Johnson. Just a few years before President Eisenhower had 
stood by as Fidel Castro had overthrown Cuba’s dictator Fulgencio 
Batista, only to learn too late of Castro’s Communist loyalties. Johnson 
was determined that there should be no more Castros in Latin America, 
and, rather than take a chance, he chose to intervene against just such 
an eventuality. 33 

The first reinforcements for the 500 marines already ashore came 
in the form of 1,500 additional marines on 29 April. They met no resis¬ 
tance as they took up positions in the western part of the city around the 
U.S. embassy and the Embajador Hotel, where foreign nationals had 
gathered for evacuation. Early the following morning airplanes carrying 
lead elements of the 82d Airborne Division, the STRAC unit earmarked 
for Latin American contingencies, touched down at San Isidro airport 
about eighteen kilometers east of the capital. Officially, the deployment 
was billed as a neutral interposition to protect American lives and prop¬ 
erty. Privately, Joint Chiefs Chairman Army General Earle G. Wheeler 
informed Army Lt. Gen. Bruce Palmer, Jr., the ultimate commander of 
U.S. Forces, Dominican Republic, that his “unstated mission” was to 
prevent a Communist takeover. 

U.S. military authorities immediately effected a close collaboration 
with the Loyalists. Not only had the Loyalists allowed the paratroopers 
to land at San Isidro, but they turned over to the 82d Airborne Division 


204 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


the vital Duarte Bridge, the only access point to the capital from San 
Isidro. The Americans in turn gave the Loyalists supplies and advice, 
hoping that the Dominican military would be able to quash the rebel¬ 
lion on its own. Palmer even developed a plan in which Loyalist forces 
would drive into Santo Domingo to capture several key installations 
and link the two American positions. If successful, the move would 
have trapped the bulk of the Constitutionalists in the southeastern 
corner of the city along the banks of the Ozama River, thereby prevent¬ 
ing them from escaping into the countryside. Loyalist military forces 
proved unequal to the task, and U.S. diplomats, without consulting 
Palmer, agreed to a cease-fire that left the two American lodgments 
isolated from each other. 34 

Palmer believed the resulting situation was both militarily unten¬ 
able and injurious to America’s ultimate goal of suppressing the upris¬ 
ing. After some negotiation he managed to persuade the diplomats to 
allow him to link his two positions. On the night of 3 May, the marines 
expanded their security zone in western Santo Domingo while three 
battalions of paratroopers leapfrogged over each other to cut a corridor 
through the city along a route chosen to avoid key Constitutionalist 
installations and minimize the danger of conflict. The night operation 
took the Constitutionalists by surprise, and in just a little over an hour 
the soldiers secured the desired link up with minimal casualties. Over 
the next few days the Americans gradually expanded the corridor, 
variously dubbed Battle Alley and the All American Expressway, into a 
relatively secure line of communications that trapped 80 percent of the 
Constitutionalists in the southeastern corner of the capital. Although 
Palmer permitted people to travel freely between the two halves of the 
city, his roadblocks gave the Americans a stranglehold over the move¬ 
ment of arms into the rebel bastion, notwithstanding the ingenious 
efforts of Dominican smugglers. 3 ' (Map 9) 

With the rebels isolated. Palmer sought authority to close in for the 
kill, but to no avail. President Johnson wished to avoid both the spectacle 
of U.S. soldiers crushing a popularly supported revolution as well as the 
prospect of increased U.S. casualties. Moreover, the intervention had 
already sparked a tremendous outcry among Latin American nations 
that deeply resented anything that smacked of old-fashioned Yankee 
gunboat diplomacy. Having already agreed to a call by the Organization 
of American States (OAS) for a cease-fire, Johnson was reluctant to do 
anything further to inflame hemispheric sensibilities. Consequently, like 
President Woodrow Wilson a half-century before, Johnson refrained from 
authorizing blunt force and endeavored instead to wield military power 
in a somewhat more delicate, if not entirely subtle, way to pressure the 


205 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Map 9 


Dominicans into accepting his ultimate will. He ordered the 24,000 U.S. 
soldiers and marines in Santo Domingo to interpose themselves between 
the two warring parties while American diplomats capitalized on the 
leverage provided by the military’s presence to persuade the Dominicans 
to accept a negotiated settlement. His decision to refrain from apply¬ 
ing additional force, while admirable, placed a heavy burden on those 
charged with implementing this policy. 36 

Although Army doctrine accepted the preeminence of civilian 
policy makers and diplomatic concerns during situations short of war, 


206 






































Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 



An American checkpoint controls the movement of people 
through Santo Domingo. 


General Palmer resented some of the restraints placed on his freedom 
of action. Likewise, while doctrine fully endorsed the principle of 
minimum force, U.S. troops in Santo Domingo soon began to chafe at 
the many restrictions placed upon them by senior officials. According 
to the rules of engagement, U.S. tankers could return fire with their 
.45-caliber pistols if fired upon but needed clearance from their com¬ 
pany commander to fire their carbines. To fire the coaxial .30-caliber 
machine gun mounted on their tanks, the tankers had to get the permis¬ 
sion of General Palmer. To fire their tank’s larger .50-caliber machine 
gun, U.S. tankers had to get the approval of the theater commander. 
A tank crew could not fire its 90-mm. main gun without first receiv¬ 
ing authorization from the Pentagon in Washington. Eventually, so 
many restrictions were added, deleted, qualified, or changed that the 
troops became confused as to what the rules actually were at any given 
moment. One restriction, which prevented soldiers from firing unless 
their position was in imminent danger of being overrun, proved both 
demoralizing and hazardous, as Constitutionalist snipers learned that 
they could fire with impunity knowing that the Americans would not 
fire back. 37 

These problems notwithstanding, the soldiers endeavored to 
execute faithfully their difficult and sometimes murky assignment. 
Palmer collocated his headquarters with the embassy to effect closer 
politico-military coordination, frequently voicing his opinion on policy 


207 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


questions. His sensitivity to the 
delicate aspects of his mission and 
his insistence that his men exhibit 
decorum contributed greatly to 

the ultimate success of the inter- 

• "2 0 

vention. 

Over the next few months 
U.S. troops labored to maintain 
the fragile and oft-violated truce 
while enduring frequent harass¬ 
ment from Constitutionalist snip¬ 
ers. Yet the soldiers were not 
truly neutral peacekeepers, for 
they were always ready to apply 
coercive measures in the inter¬ 
est of furthering U.S. national 
objectives. Army Special Forces 
teams, for example, assaulted 
Constitutionalist-controlled radio 
transmitters throughout the coun¬ 
try to prevent them from dis¬ 
seminating revolutionary and anti- 
American propaganda. Then, when the Constitutionalists refused to 
exile several Castroite leaders, Palmer helped plan a Loyalist attack 
that seized the country’s central broadcast facilities, thereby knocking 
the rebels off the airwaves for good. The following month, Maj. Gen. 
Robert H. York, commander of the 82d Airborne Division, retaliated 
against the heavy Constitutionalist fire by attacking the main rebel 
quarter of the city. In a few hours York’s men had seized approximately 
thirty square blocks of Constitutionalist territory and were poised to 
overrun the entire enclave before Palmer, on orders from Washington, 
reluctantly reined in his subordinate. A military solution, no matter how 
quick and easy to achieve, was not what President Johnson desired, yet 
there was no doubt in whose direction U.S. guns were pointed. 39 

The July fight proved a sobering one for the Constitutionalists, 
who realized that their military weakness undermined their overall 
negotiating position. In August they agreed to a settlement brokered 
by the Organization of American States. The agreement created a new 
provisional government under a moderate, Hector Garcia-Godoy, who 
pledged to hold new elections in nine months. 

Although the marines had withdrawn in June, a portion of the 
82d Airborne Division remained in the Dominican Republic to help 



A U.S. soldier watches a 
manhole to prevent the 
Constitutionalists from moving 
men and supplies through the 
sewer system. 


208 



Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


implement the pact as part of an Inter-American Peacekeeping Force 
(IAPF). The Organization of American States had created the peace¬ 
keeping force in May at the request of the United States, which sought 
refuge from international condemnation by cloaking its heretofore 
unilateral intervention in the mantle of a multinational initiative. 
Ultimately, six countries—Brazil, Honduras, Paraguay, Nicaragua, 
Costa Rica, and El Salvador—participated by sending 1,600 soldiers 
and policemen. As part of its price for creating the peacekeeping 
force, the Organization of American States demanded that a Latin 
American be given command of the force, including the U.S. con¬ 
tingent. Palmer argued vigorously against placing U.S. troops under 
foreign command on the grounds that such an arrangement would 
undermine America’s ability to use its armed forces in pursuit of 
national interests, but Washington acceded to the OAS’ demand. 

In practice, the experiment in international peacekeeping worked 
well. The commander of the Inter-American Peacekeeping Force, 
Brazilian Lt. Gen. Hugo Panasco Alvim, established a good relation¬ 
ship with Palmer, who by arrangement was made A1 vim’s deputy and 
retained exclusive control over the approximately 6,200 U.S. paratroop¬ 
ers who made up the American contingent. The United States provided 
nearly all of the IAPF’s logistical and combat capabilities and posted 
Spanish-speaking officers to the staff, which was run according to 
American procedures. The fact that most of the Latin officers assigned 
to the peacekeeping force had attended U.S. military schools further 
smoothed operations. Nevertheless, Palmer never wavered in his opin¬ 
ion that placing U.S. combat troops under the field command of a for¬ 
eign officer had been a “serious error” that should never be repeated. 40 

Over the course of the next year, the American contingent of the 
peacekeeping force protected the provisional government from subver¬ 
sion from both the right and the left. It demilitarized the Constitutionalist 
quarter of the city when rebel elements refused to disarm, while also 
blocking several attempted coups by military units. Meanwhile, the 
Americans conducted an aggressive psychological and civic action 
campaign. Most airborne officers in the Dominican Republic had been 
exposed to the concept of civic action in Army schools and readily 
initiated such programs from the beginning of the intervention. While 
Army bands serenaded the residents of Santo Domingo, Army engi¬ 
neers restored municipal services, repaired roads, and built schools; 
Army doctors provided free medical care to 58,000 people; and Army 
paratroopers organized youth baseball teams, hosted Christmas parties, 
and assisted civilian aid agencies in distributing 30 million pounds of 
food and 15,000 pounds of clothing. Army psyops specialists supported 


209 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A soldier distributes milk to civilians. 


these activities through millions of printed propaganda items and thou¬ 
sands of hours of loudspeaker and radio broadcasts. 

Sometimes American generosity backfired, as civilians reacted with 
indignation when their demands for money and helicopter rides were not 
met. Other complications arose when the Army chose not to reopen Santo 
Domingo’s schools due to faculty shortages and intelligence reports that 
the city’s schools were havens for Communist agitators. Nevertheless, 
while there is no objective evidence as to the effectiveness of military 
civil and psychological operations in the Dominican Republic, the 
Army’s endeavors in these areas doubtlessly helped reduce civilian suf¬ 
fering and sped restoration of normality in the capital. 41 

In June 1966 Balaguer defeated Bosch in the presidential elections. 
With a new democratically elected government in place, the last Army 
paratroopers departed the Dominican Republic on 21 September 1966. 
Twenty-seven Americans had lost their lives and another 172 had been 
wounded during the seventeen-month intervention. 

Like the Army’s previous forays into situations short of war in 
Lebanon and Thailand, the Dominican intervention must be considered 
a success. A Communist takeover, if it had ever been in the cards, was 
forestalled and a more democratic and stable regime had been installed. 
On the negative side, the intervention had cost the United States the 
trust of its Latin neighbors, while the new Dominican government, 
though less oppressive than those heretofore, retained certain unsavory 
characteristics. The Dominican military, while somewhat chastened. 


210 





Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


showed little interest in absorbing American proposals for reform and 
civic action, ideals which even the United States prioritized behind the 
maintenance of order and stability. Moreover, little progress had been 
made in redressing the deep-seated social and economic problems that 
underlay the island’s political instability. But no one could reasonably 
expect a relatively short military intervention to achieve such lofty, yet 
difficult, goals. In the end, U.S. military forces did a commendable job 
in navigating the treacherous course laid down for them by civilian 
policy makers. 42 

From an operational standpoint, many of the deficiencies that had 
occurred in Lebanon reappeared during the Dominican expedition, not¬ 
withstanding the six years the Pentagon had had to correct them. As in 
Lebanon, military forces deployed to the Dominican Republic without 
reliable or timely intelligence on the political and military situation 
in the country. Although the 82d Airborne Division was the Army’s 
contingency force for Latin America, it had not had time prior to the 
operation to adjust its plans to recent changes in Army organization 
and joint-level plans. Nor had the backup brigade concept measured up 
to expectations. Not only had a single brigade proved far too meager a 
force to send to even a small country like the Dominican Republic, but 
when the initial call came, General York had sent his 3d Brigade to the 
Caribbean rather than the designated Latin American backup force, the 
1st Brigade. He had done so because elements of the 3d Brigade were 
currently pulling alert duty while the language-qualified and counterin¬ 
surgency-trained men of the 1 st Brigade had rotated into a stand-down 
mode and were not immediately available for action. The 1st Brigade 
eventually arrived in the Dominican Republic with the rest of the divi¬ 
sion but not in its envisioned role as the highly specialized, culturally 
sensitive advance element for situations short of war. Even then, sched¬ 
uling problems and personnel rotations left the 82d Airborne Division 
far short of the number of language-qualified men it could have used 
on the streets of Santo Domingo. 43 

While the Dominican experience pointed up some shortcomings in 
Army planning, the operation also illustrated other problems. Though 
designated for contingency duty, a mission that Army doctrine recog¬ 
nized required careful tailoring of forces, the 82d Airborne Division 
had failed to develop austere tables of organization for less than a full 
combat load. Once in command. General Palmer tried to limit logisti¬ 
cal shipments to only those supplies he actually needed. This proved 
difficult, for as in Lebanon, the Army’s logisticians were incredibly 
efficient at moving vast quantities of unneeded materiel to the scene 
of operations. 44 


211 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Parallels to the Lebanon experience also existed in the realm of 
command and control. Given the complexity and sensitivity of the 
mission, command arrangements needed to be as clear as possible, yet 
during the early days of the operation three major changes in command 
structure occurred, and violations of the chain of command were fre¬ 
quent. Moreover, the communication gear the 82d Airborne Division 
initially brought to the island lacked the range to effect direct commu¬ 
nication with the United States, a severe handicap in a delicate opera¬ 
tion in which Washington strove to control every move. 45 

Just as disturbing as these flaws in command, control, and logistics 
was the low priority Army planners had again given to the deployment 
of noncombat personnel, such as civil affairs, psychological warfare, 
medical, and police specialists. The Army unwisely denied requests by 
brigade commanders for experienced civil affairs officers to be posted 
to their staffs, thereby forcing the commanders to create civil affairs 
positions from their own assets. It likewise failed to program any 
medical units to minister to the population and limited the number of 
psychological warfare and police personnel to be deployed. Experience 
soon showed these arrangements inadequate. Unlike Lebanon, where 
the United States Information Service had handled virtually the 
entire propaganda and public information burden using its in-country 
resources, in the Dominican Republic the rebels had seized USIS’ 
physical plant, and the agency was unable to disseminate information. 
Caught unprepared, the Army had to increase its psychological warfare 
contingent from a small detachment to an entire battalion. A similar sit¬ 
uation existed with regard to military policemen, whom Palmer found 
were “literally worth their weight in gold.” Eventually military police¬ 
men arrived in battalion strength. A greater application of doctrinal 
principles by Army planners would have redressed these shortcomings 
and resulted in a smoother operation from the beginning. 46 

Doctrine in the Aftermath of the Dominican Intervention 

The military made extensive efforts to learn from the Dominican 
experience. The Joint Chiefs and the three services all initiated lessons 
learned programs. Both U.S. Forces, Dominican Republic, and the 82d 
Airborne Division compiled multivolume reports, while the Army estab¬ 
lished a special center that debriefed returning soldiers and distilled their 
recollections into precepts to be applied in future Cold War operations. 
These reports were distributed to appropriate officials for planning and 
training considerations, as well as to the Army War College, whose stu¬ 
dents would study the Dominican crisis for the next five years. 


212 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


Although many of the lessons derived from these efforts pertained 
to technical matters relevant to almost any contingency operation or 
deployment, some did indeed focus on the distinctive aspects of over¬ 
seas constabulary and intervention service. One lesson widely derived 
by Army commentators was the need to use overwhelming force early in 
an intervention to overawe one’s opponents. Many officers believed that 
the rapid deployment of a large and capable force had helped minimize 
the fighting in the Dominican Republic, and they roundly criticized 
initial plans that had envisioned employing only three battalions. 

A corollary to this argument was that the best time to intervene was 
early in a crisis, before the opposition had time to marshal its forces. 
While this made sense from a combat standpoint, Army officers also 
favored the rapid application of overwhelming force as a way of avoiding 
what they regarded as undue political interference in military operations. 
The 82d Airborne Division report, for example, stated that the division 
could have easily defeated the Constitutionalists and brought the crisis to 
a rapid conclusion had it not been reined in by the diplomats and forced 
to obey a truce that initially placed U.S. military forces at a disadvantage. 
The report thus highlighted the continuing, and perhaps unresolvable, 
conflict between military and political needs and objectives in situations 
short of war. Had the Army dealt with the operation its way, it could have 
ended the conflict quicker and on a much sounder military basis, but at 
a much higher cost in lives and political capital and without the oppor¬ 
tunity for obtaining the relatively peaceful resolution that was ultimately 
achieved, all of which were of great concern to civilian policy makers. 
Palmer understood this, but ultimately both York and Alvim were relieved 
from duty when their military and ideological preferences clashed with 
those of civilian policy makers. 47 

The exasperation that some soldiers voiced with regard to the degree 
of political interference they had endured during the Dominican inter¬ 
vention did not mean that Army officers objected to civilian control. 
Indeed, all post-operation analyses emphasized the need for continuous 
and close coordination between civilian and military agencies during 
situations short of war. Such cooperation would help ensure that mili¬ 
tary force would serve political goals under difficult and often rapidly 
changing circumstances. But the Army also advocated closer coordina¬ 
tion as a way of ensuring that politicians would have to take military 
considerations into account in formulating their policies, something 
many officers believed had not been adequately achieved during the 
Dominican crisis. Moreover, while acceding to the principle of ultimate 
civilian control, Palmer and his subordinates urged a return to the prin¬ 
ciples of decentralized execution and mission-type orders, arguing that 


213 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the people on the ground—the intervention commander and the ambas¬ 
sador—and not military and civilian officials in Washington, should be 
the ones making day-to-day tactical decisions. 4 " 

Other lessons learned, or relearned, as a result of the Dominican 
experience included the need for mental and organizational flexibility, 
the inevitability of public controversy during foreign interventions, the 
critical importance of acquiring and rapidly disseminating intelligence 
(especially information regarding political and social conditions), and 
the need for restraint in employing firepower and handling the popula¬ 
tion. The operation also served to drive home to the Army at large the 
importance of limited contingency missions and the need to be prepared 
for them, a message Army Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson 
had been pushing for several months prior to the intervention. 

General Johnson believed that America’s strategy of combating 
communism in third world countries through political, social, and 
economic programs would fail unless those programs were protected 
from subversive forces. Affording that security—either through mili¬ 
tary assistance programs or by direct intervention—was, in Johnson’s 
opinion, the most important contribution the Army could make toward 
winning the Cold War. In 1964 General Johnson had coined the phrase 
“stability operations” to describe such activities, which he asserted 
were the “third principal mission of the Army,” along with waging gen¬ 
eral and limited warfare. 41 ' 

General Palmer fully embraced the chief of staff’s philosophy, 
and during the Dominican intervention he frequently referred to the 
stability operation concept, stating that the goal of such operations was 
neither “to maintain the status quo, . . . nor to support any particular 
faction or political group, but rather to establish a climate of order in 
which political, psychological, economic, sociological and other forces 
can work in a peaceful environment.” His experience in the Dominican 
Republic, however, led him to concede that these goals were difficult 
to achieve, and consequently he concluded in his official report that the 
United States should carefully weigh any intervention decision before 
committing its forces to what might prove to be a “bottomless pit.” 50 

The Dominican intervention thus bequeathed the Army many 
valuable insights into the intricate and sometimes treacherous nature 
of situations short of war. Yet the Army incorporated relatively few of 
these lessons into its official manuals. Firsthand experience on the part 
of participants and the ideas derived from the many reports that fol¬ 
lowed the intervention certainly had an impact, especially at the plan¬ 
ning and technical levels, but other lessons either remained unlearned 
or were not applied, just as had been the case after Lebanon. Human 


214 






Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


and bureaucratic inertia partially accounted for this situation, but other 
factors contributed as well. 

To begin with, many of the technical and tactical lessons derived from 
the Dominican experience were not new at all but were already expressed 
in Army literature. Thus the lack of attention to civil affairs and psycho¬ 
logical warfare concerns in Army intervention plans represented less a 
doctrinal gap than a failure to apply already existent doctrine. Moreover, 
the very nature of overseas contingency and constabulary operations 
continued to defy the formulation of more detailed doctrine. While the 
Army undoubtedly would have benefited had it given the lessons of the 
Dominican intervention more attention in its doctrinal literature, ulti¬ 
mately many problems characteristic of stability operations could not be 
reduced to pat answers and fixed procedures. Even General Palmer, who 
fully appreciated the unique challenges posed by situations short of war, 
puzzled over how best to prepare for such contingencies. “How do you 
forewarn troops, trained to be aggressive, hard hitting, and tough, for such 
missions requiring great restraint?” wondered Palmer. “I don’t know the 
answer. But I do know that it takes superbly disciplined, intelligent, and 
alert troops.” These were qualities expected of all U.S. soldiers, and conse¬ 
quently he doubted that troops needed special training for stability opera¬ 
tions, noting that “peacekeeping demands the same disciplined, skilled 
troops as does combat.” Rather than special training, Palmer believed that 
preparing troops for constabulary duties was more a matter of indoctrina¬ 
tion—that is, of acquainting them with the political objectives of their 
mission, acculturating them to the local scene, and teaching them to be 
open minded enough to adapt to the exigencies of the moment.' 1 These 
principles were already incorporated into Army doctrine, and consequent¬ 
ly, Army manuals published after the Dominican intervention differed in 
neither scope nor substance from those published before the operation. 

The Army also did not develop a doctrine specific to peacekeeping 
operations. With the exception of a few minor adjustments in word¬ 
ing, the 1968 edition of FM 100-5, Operations of Army Forces in the 
Field, contained concepts virtually unchanged from those that had first 
emerged a decade before, a situation that continued until 1976, when 
the Army deleted stability operations from FM 100-5 altogether. The 
same situation obtained in other Army manuals of the late 1960s and 
early 1970s, which not only did not update their doctrine, but gradually 
phased out all coverage of situations short of war, cold war operations, 
and stability operations. 52 

The apparent willingness of the United States to intervene directly 
in the internal troubles of other nations during the mid-1960s, as exhib¬ 
ited by the deployment of U.S. troops to the Dominican Republic and 


215 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


South Vietnam in 1965, did, however, cause the Army to reevaluate its 
organizational approach to stability operations. Noting that the Special 
Action Forces suffered from a number of organizational and admin¬ 
istrative deficiencies, in October 1965 General Johnson approved a 
proposal to replace them with Regional Assistance Commands (RACs) 
in each overseas unified theater command. Although designed to per¬ 
form the same advisory functions as the SAF, the RAC differed funda¬ 
mentally from the Special Action Force in that it substituted a combat 
brigade for the SAF’s Special Forces group, thereby giving RACs the 
ability to spearhead an intervention operation. The Regional Assistance 
Command thus reflected a reversion to the more activist posture con¬ 
tained in the original proposal for Cold War task forces. 

Because of personnel shortages associated with mobilizing for the 
Vietnam War, General Johnson decided to phase the RACs in gradually, 
beginning with U.S. Southern Command, the Panama-based unified 
command devoted to Latin America. The proposed Latin American 
Regional Assistance Command, however, quickly ran afoul of political 
considerations. Senior officials in the Departments of State and Defense 
balked at stationing a Regional Assistance Command in Panama on the 
grounds that Latin Americans would react negatively to the prospect 
of having an intervention corps based in their midst. As the conflict in 
Vietnam continued to escalate, the Army placed the RAC concept on 
hold until the end of the war, at which point it scrapped the idea alto¬ 
gether due to force reductions and a clear recognition of the public’s 
dwindling interest in overseas adventures. Meanwhile, the ostensibly 
less threatening, advisory-oriented SAFs remained in place, reinforced 
as before by backup brigades drawn from the Strategic Army Corps. 
After Vietnam, however, the Army drastically reduced both the number 
of Special Forces personnel and the amount of counterinsurgency and 
constabulary training given to the backup brigades. By the early 1980s 
students at the Command and General Staff College refused to take 
seriously exercises that called for employing backup brigades in inde¬ 
pendent intervention roles, noting that the United States had never used 
these units in such a capacity in the past. By then, whatever claims the 
backup brigades could have made to being culturally attuned, specially 
trained “short-of-war” formations had clearly fallen by the wayside. 53 

The stagnation and ultimate demise of overseas constabulary doc¬ 
trine should not lead one to conclude that the Army ignored subjects 
pertinent to situations short of war after the Dominican intervention. 
Instead, the Army’s attention was absorbed by events in Vietnam 
and the doctrinal behemoth of the 1960s—counterinsurgency. So 
obsessed were U.S. civil and military officials with the need to combat 


216 



Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


Communist-inspired insurgencies during the 1960s that this one form 
of Cold War activity eventually absorbed the broader subject of situa¬ 
tions short of war. Although this development meant that some aspects 
of situations short of war—such as peacekeeping and international 
truce enforcement—never had a chance to develop doctrinally, many of 
the basic principles contained in Army doctrine for situations short of 
war did find expression in the burgeoning counterinsurgency literature 
of the 1960s. 


217 




Notes 


1 Barry Blechman and Stephen Kaplan, Force Without War: U.S. Armed Forces as 
a Political Instrument (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1978), pp. 226-33. 
Quote from Margaret Bodron, “U.S. Intervention in Lebanon—1958,” Military 
Review 56 (February 1976): 72. Roger Spiller, ‘Not War But Like War’: The American 
Intervention in Lebanon (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1981), pp. 
14-18; U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR), The U.S. Army Task Force in Lebanon, 1959, 
p. 2, copy in CMH; Charles Koburger, “Morning Coats and Brass Hats,” Military Review 
45 (April 1965): 68. 

2 Spiller, Not War But Like War , pp. 12, 18, 25; Koburger, “Morning Coats,” p. 70; 
Blechman and Kaplan, Force Without War , p. 237; USAREUR, Task Force in Lebanon, 
p. 32. 

3 Blechman and Kaplan, Force Without War , pp. 232-33; USAREUR, Task Force in 
Lebanon, p. 42. 

4 Bodron, “Intervention in Lebanon,” p. 74; Lynn Smith, “Lebanon—Professionalism 
at Its Best,” Military Review’ 39 (June 1959): 39; Spiller, Not War But Like War, p. 41. 

5 Smith, “Lebanon,” p. 43; USAREUR, Task Force in Lebanon, pp. 42, 44, 47-48; 
David Gray, The U.S. Intervention in Lebanon, 1958: A Commander’s Reminiscence 
(Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1984), p. 39. 

6 Koburger, “Morning Coats,” p. 73; USAREUR, Task Force in Lebanon, pp. 
36-37. 

Quote from Smith, “Lebanon,” p. 40, and see also p. 46. Bodron, “Intervention 
in Lebanon,” pp. 74-75; Blechman and Kaplan, Force Without War, pp. 239, 247-48, 
254-55. 

8 Spiller, Not War But Like War, pp. 37-38, 44; Gary Wade, Rapid Deployment 
Logistics: Lebanon, 1958 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1984), p. 
81; USAREUR, Task Force in Lebanon, p. 40. 

4 Quoted words from Koburger, “Morning Coats,” p. 73, and see also p. 71. 
USAREUR, Task Force in Lebanon, pp. 61-62; Wade, Rapid Deployment Logistics, 
pp. 66-67. 

10 Status of forces agreements explain the rights and obligations of American forces 
stationed overseas and of the foreign government that is hosting them. They typically 
cover issues like troop movements, basing privileges, labor relations, legal jurisdictions, 
and compensation for property damage. USAREUR, Task Force in Lebanon, pp. 62, 70, 
74-75; Wade, Rapid Deployment Logistics, pp. 5-6, 66-69, 72, 75; Spiller, Not War But 
Like War, pp. 38-39; Smith, “Lebanon,” p. 45. 

" Gray, U.S. Intervention in Lebanon, pp. 25-26. 

12 Quote from FM 7-100, The Infantry Division, 1958, p. 202, and see also p. 203. 

13 First and second quoted words from ibid., pp. 203 and 205, respectively. Third 
quote from ibid., p. 207. 

14 First, second, and third quotes from ibid., pp. 204, 203, and 207, respectively. 

15 Quote from ibid., p. 207, and see also pp. 204-05, 209. 

1,1 Doctrine for situations short of war was developed in 1956 and first appeared 
in the initial draft manuscript for FM 7-100, The Infantry Division, in January 1957. 
Continental Army Command (CONARC) published the draft manual as Training Text 


218 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


7—100-2, “The Infantry Division,” in March 1957. The material did not find formal 
expression in an officially approved manual, however, until May 1958—two months 
before the Lebanon intervention—with the publication of FM 17-100, The Armored 
Division and Combat Command. FM 17-100 offered only cursory treatment of the sub¬ 
ject, which did not receive a full official airing until the publication of the final version 
of FM 7-100 in October 1958, just as the Lebanon intervention was ending. 

First and second quotes from FM 17—100, The Armored Division and Combat 
Command , chg 1, Jun 59, pp. 23 and 22, respectively, and see also p. 21. 

Is FM 30—5, Combat Intelligence, 1960, pp. 9—10; FM 7—100, The Infantry Division, 
1960, pp. 240^42; David Gray, “When We Fight a Small War,” Army 10 (July 1960): 
27-34; William Kelly, Situations Short of War (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 
1960). 

IQ First and second quotes from FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, 
1962, pp. 5 and 155, respectively, and see also pp. 11-12. Osgood, Limited War, p. 20. 

" Quote from FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations , 1962, p. 8, and see 
also pp. 9, 15-17. 

:i Quotes from ibid., p. 156, and see also pp. 45, 56, 155-62. 

FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Operations, 1962, pp. 85-99; USAREUR, Task Force 
in Lebanon, pp. 75-76; FM 33-5, Psychological Operations, 1962, pp. 107-10; FM 
61-100, The Division, 1962, pp. 4-5, 235^10. 

23 First four quotes from Lesson Plan A4600/9, CGSC, Antiguerrilla Operations in 
a Local War, 1958-1959, p. 1-4-1. Last quote from ibid., p. V-l. CGSC, The Military 
History of the Command and General Staff School, c. 1963, p. 60; Clyde Eddleman, The 
Report of Educational Survey Commission of the United States Army Command and 
General Staff College, November 1962, p. 12. All at CARL, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 

24 Lesson Plans 4600/60, CGSC, Anti-Guerrilla Operations in a Limited War, 
1959-1960; 4600/1, CGSC, Anti-Guerrilla Operations in a Limited War, 1960-1961; 
4112-3/1, CGSC, 1960-1961; 2015/1, CGSC, Infantry Division, Part of a Strategic 
Army Strike Force, Deployment in a Situation Short of War, 1960-1961; 4112-3/2, 
CGSC, 1961-1962; and R2310-1, CGSC, 1962-1963. All at CARL. 

Paul Adams, “Strike Command,” Military Review’ 42 (May 1962): 2-10. 

26 Quote from Speech, “The Military Aspects of the Cold War,” Decker to the 
National Security Seminar, AWC, 8 Jun 61, p. 9, Historians files, CMH. 

27 Lesson Plan R2310/5, CGSC, 1964-1965, app. II to an. M to USCONARC 
Training Directive, Counterinsurgency Training, Special Action Force Backup Force 
Training, pp. LP 2-3 to LP 2-8, CARL; Addendum to Summary Sheet, DCSOPS to 
CSA, 8 Sep 61, sub: U.S. Free World Liaison and Assistance Group (US FLAG), with 
atchs, in 380, DCSOPS, 1961, RG 319, NARA. 

28 For Laos’ civic action program, see Harry Walterhouse, A Time To Build: Military 
Civic Action — Medium for Economic Development and Social Reform (Columbia: 
University of South Carolina Press, 1964), pp. 95-98; Martin Massoglia et al., Military 
Civic Action, Evaluation of Military Techniques, 2 vols. (Research Triangle Institute, 
1971), 2:vii—18; Oudone Sananikone, “Laos: Case Study in Civic Action, The Royal 
Lao Program,” Military Review 43 (December 1963): 44-54; Charles Stocked, “Laos, 
Case Study in Civic Action, The Military Program,” Military Review 43 (December 
1963): 55-63; Memo, Commander in Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), for JCS, 21 Feb 63, 
sub: Lessons Learned, MAAG and Special Forces Activities in Laos, pp. 13-14, Geog 
V Laos, 350.05 Lessons Learned, CMH. 


219 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

2g Timothy Castle, At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U.S. Military Aid to the Royal 
Lao Government, 1955-1975 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 7^16; 
Blechman and Kaplan, Force Without War, pp. 136—41. 

30 “Thailand Album,” Army Information Digest 18 (January 1963): 8-11; William 
Burr, “The Use of U.S. Army Power in Nonviolent Support of Political Objectives (The 
Role of the Army in the Cold War)” (Student thesis, AWC, 1963), p. 16; Burton Lesh, 
“Lessons Learned: Thailand,” Infantry 54 (March-April 1964): 59. 

31 For the war in Laos, see Castle, War in the Shadow of Vietnam ; Douglas 
Blaufarb, Organizing and Managing Unconventional Warfare in Laos, 1962-1970, 
RAND-R-919-ARPA (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1972); Ben Baldwin et ah, 
Case Study of United States Counterinsurgency Operations in Laos, 1955-1962, 
RAC-T-435, Research Analysis Corporation, 1964; Roger Warner, Back Fire: The 
CIA’s Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam (New York: Simon & 
Schuster, 1995); Oudone Sananikone, The Royal Lao Army and U.S. Army Advice and 
Support , Indochina Monographs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military 
History, 1981). 

32 Lawrence Yates, Power Pack: U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic (Fort 
Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1988), pp. 14-66; Blechman and Kaplan, 
Force Without War , pp. 291-93, 303-08; Lawrence Greenberg, U.S. Army Unilateral and 
Coalition Operations in the 1965 Dominican Republic Intervention (Washington, D.C.: 
U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1987), pp. 13-16. 

33 Jerome Slater, Intervention and Negotiation: The United States and the Dominican 
Republic (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 199-200; Blechman and Kaplan, Force 
Without War , pp. 308-10. 

34 Quoted words from Yates, Power Pack , p. 86. 

35 Ibid., pp. 79,93-95; Abraham Lowenthall, The Dominican Intervention (Cambridge, 
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 100, 108, 119-20, 125; Bruce Palmer, “The 
Army in the Dominican Republic,” Army 15 (November 1965): 44; William Klein, 
“Stability Operations in Santo Domingo,” Infantry 56 (May-June 1966): 36; Rpt, United 
States Forces, Dominican Republic (USFORDR), 1965, Stability Operations, Dominican 
Republic, pt. 1, vol. 1, pp. 7-10, copy in CMH (hereafter cited as USFORDR Rpt). 

Birtle, Counterinsurgency Doctrine, pp. 191-231; P. Haley, “Comparative 
Intervention: Mexico in 1914 and Dominica in 1965,” in Robin Higham, ed., 
Intervention or Abstention: The Dilemma of American Foreign Policy (Lexington: 
University of Kentucky, 1975), pp. 41, 49; Yates, Power Pack, pp. 77, 96, 98; Blechman 
and Kaplan, Force Without War, p. 310. 

37 Yates, Power Pack, pp. 142-43; Mark Gillespie et ah, The Sergeants Major of the 
Army (Washington, D.C.; U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995), p. 117. 

38 Yates, Power Pack, pp. 73-74, 96, 119, 140-43, 177; CONARC, The Role of the 
U.S. Continental Army Command in Operations in the Dominican Republic, 1965, 
1966, pp. 109-10, 136, copy in CMH. 

39 Yates, Power Pack, pp. 158-59; Blechman and Kaplan, Force Without War, pp. 
324-25. 

40 Quoted words from Yates, Power Pack, p. 156, and see also pp. 49-50, 146-55; 
Frederick Turner, “Experiment in Inter-American Peace-Keeping,” Army 17 (June 
1967): 34-39. 

41 Yates, Power Pack, pp. 133, 139, 163, 169; Blechman and Kaplan, Force Without 
War, pp. 327-28; Study of Civil Affairs Organization, atch to Memo, U.S. Army 


220 


Cold War Contingency Operations, 1958-1965 


Combat Developments Command (USACDC) Institute of Strategic Studies Stability 
Operations (Prov) for the CG, Combat Developments Command (CDC), 17 Apr 69, 
sub: Evaluation of Civil Affairs Organization, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; James 
Clingham, “'All American’ Team Work,” Army Information Digest 22 (January 1967): 
21; USFORDR Rpt, pt. 4, vol. 1, pp. vi-3 to vi-4, vi-9 to vi-10, vi-20-1 to vi-20-12; 
Wallace Moulis and Richard Brown, “Key to a Crisis,” Military Review 46 (February 
1966): 13. 

4 ~ Bruce Palmer, Jr., Intervention in the Caribbean: The Dominican Crisis of 1965 
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1989), pp. 142, 148, 153; Greenberg, 
U.S. Army Unilateral and Coalition Operations , pp. 95-96; Slater, Intervention and 
Negotiation, p. 205; Yates, Power Pack , pp. 171-73; Blechman and Kaplan, Force 
Without War, p. 340. 

43 Wade, Rapid Deployment Logistics , p. 80; Yates, Power Pack , pp. viii, 56, 65, 
176; Rpt, Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Weapon System 
Evaluation Group (WSEG), 16 Aug 66, sub: The Dominican Republic Crisis of 1965, 
pp. 254-55, in 091 Dominican Republic, CMH (hereafter cited as WSEG Rpt). 

44 Yates, Power Pack, p. 99; Lawrence Greenberg, “The U.S. Dominican Intervention: 
Success Story,” Parameters 17 (December 1987): 19; WSEG Rpt, p. 269. 

47 Yates, Power Pack, pp. 56-59; Palmer, Intervention in the Caribbean, pp. 148-52, 
156; WSEG Rpt, pp. 266-67. 

4,1 Quote from USFORDR Rpt, pt. 1, vol. 1, p. 19. Case Study 5-01, Dominican 
Republic, Course 5, AWC, 1968, p. 20, MHI; Disposition Form (DF), A. K. Marttinen, 
OPS SOOP to OPS ODWH, 26 Jul 65, sub: United States Army Psychological 
Operations During DomRep Crisis, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; Yates, Power Pack, 
pp. 136-39; John Kallunki, Operations of the 1st Psychological Warfare Battalion 
(Broadcast and Leaflet), in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations in the Dominican 
Republic, 3 May 1965 to 10 May 1965 (personal experience of graphics and printing 
team leader) (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1968). 

47 CONARC, Role of U.S. Continental Army Command in Operations in the 
Dominican Republic, pp. 136, 205; Klein, “Stability Operations,” pp. 38-39; Yates, 
Power Pack, pp. 120, 124, 142, 169, 177; USFORDR Rpt, pt. 1, vol. 1, pp. 2, 7-10, 20; 
Palmer, Intervention in the Caribbean, pp. 80, 158; Harold Johnson, “Subversion and 
Insurgency: Search for a Doctrine,” Army 15 (November 1965): 41; Slater, Intervention 
and Negotiation, pp. 194-95; Rpt, 82d Airborne Division, 1965, Stability Operations in 
the Dominican Republic, pt. 1, vol. 4, ch. 17, p. 2, CARL (hereafter cited as 82d Abn 
Div Rpt); Frank Galati, “Military Intervention in Latin America: Analysis of the 1965 
Crisis in the Dominican Republic” (Master of Military Arts and Sciences (MMAS) 
thesis, CGSC, 1983), pp. 114-18. 

48 82d Abn Div Rpt, pt. 1, vol. 4, ch. 17, p. 1; Palmer, Intervention in the Caribbean, 
pp. 155-56; USFORDR Rpt, pt. 1, vol. 1, pp. 19-20. 

49 Quotes from Harold Johnson, “Landpower Missions Unlimited,” Army 14 
(November 1964): 41-42; Harold Johnson, “The Army’s Role in Nation Building and 
Preserving Stability,” Army Information Digest 20 (November 1965): 6-13; Stephen 
Bowman, “The Evolution of United States Army Doctrine for Counterinsurgency 
Warfare: From World War II to the Commitment of Combat Units in Vietnam” 
(Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1985), pp. 129-30; Palmer, Intervention in the Caribbean, 
pp. 156-57; 82d Abn Div Rpt, pt. 1, vol. 2, p. 14; Yates, Power Pack, pp. 178-79; 
USFORDR Rpt, pt. 1, vol. 1, pp. 19-20. 


221 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


50 First quote from Yates, Power Pack , p. 73. Second quote from USFORDR Rpt, pt. 
1, vol. 1, p. 2. Greenberg, “Dominican Intervention,” p. 27; Palmer, Intervention in the 
Caribbean , p. 158. 

51 First quote from Bruce Palmer, “Lessons from the Dominican Stability Operation,” 
Army 16 (November 1966): 41. Second quote from Palmer, Intervention in the 
Caribbean, p. 159. 

52 Ralph Hinrichs, “U.S. Involvement in Low Intensity Conflict Since World War 
II: Three Case Studies—Greece, Dominican Republic, and Vietnam” (Master’s thesis, 
CGSC, 1984), pp. 4-16; FM 100-5, Operations of Army Forces in the Field, 1968, 
pp. 1-2, 12-1 to 12-5. See also FM 100-5, Operations, 1976; FM 41-10, Civil Affairs 
Operations, 1967 and 1969 editions; FM 33-5, Psychological Operations—Techniques 
and Procedures, 1966; FM 61-100, The Division, 1965 and 1968 editions. 

” Peter Kafkalas, “Low Intensity Conflict and Today’s U.S. Army: An Assessment” 
(Master’s thesis, Harvard University, 1984), pp. 97-102; CDC, Analysis of the Validity 
of Special Action Forces (SAF), 1965, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA; Summary 
Sheet, Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development (ACSFOR) to CSA, 16 Oct 65, 
sub: Planning and Programming Forces for Stability Operations, 68A2344, RG 319, 
NARA; Fact Sheet, DSDC, 6 Jan 67, sub: U.S. Army Regional Assistance Command 
(RAC) Concept, with atchs, in 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA. 


222 



The Counterinsurgency 
Ferment, 1961-1965 


On 6 January 1961, four days before the Army published its new 
doctrinal guidance on counterguerrilla warfare in FM 100-1, Soviet 
Premier Nikita Khrushchev declared his nation’s support of wars of 
national liberation. With several dozen insurgencies already percolat¬ 
ing around the globe, Khrushchev’s words signaled an escalation of 
what appeared to be a deliberate strategy to undermine Western insti¬ 
tutions where they were weakest, in the emerging nations of the third 
world. Not one to let a challenge go unmet, President John F. Kennedy 
announced in his 20 January inaugural address that America would 
“pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, 
oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.” 1 

Kennedy and the Army 

Kennedy’s strategy for rescuing the underdeveloped world from 
communism rested on three pillars—economic development, political 
reform, and military assistance. Of these, military action was the least 
important. As Kennedy explained in a May 1961 address to Congress, 
insurgency was really more of a “battle for minds and souls” rather 
than of weapons, for “no amount of arms and armies can help stabilize 
those governments which are unable or unwilling to achieve social and 
economic reform and development. Military pacts cannot help nations 
whose social injustice and economic chaos invite insurgency and 
penetration and subversion. The most skillful counter-guerrilla efforts 
cannot succeed where the local population is too caught up in its own 
misery to be concerned about the advance of communism.” 2 


223 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Kennedy’s approach differed from that of prior administrations 
less in substance than in style. A charismatic leader, Kennedy turned 
the fight against communism into a national crusade. He rallied pub¬ 
lic support, expanded foreign aid programs, and created the Peace 
Corps to spread American ideas to the peoples of the world. To guide 
this effort, the president recruited to his administration the “best and 
the brightest” America’s universities and corporations had to offer, 
including the leading proponent of economic development and nation¬ 
building theory, Walt Rostow. These “action intellectuals” preached a 
creed of social engineering that proved quite popular, resonating as 
it did with several deeply ingrained aspects of the American psyche, 
including liberal progressivism, Christian evangelicalism, and cul¬ 
tural chauvinism, not to mention the nation’s growing acceptance of 
government activism as a remedy for social ills. Together, Rostow’s 
theory about the revolution of rising expectations, and Kennedy’s 
proposed solution—sociopolitical reforms that would win the “hearts 
and minds” of disaffected peoples the world over—created an “ideol¬ 
ogy of modernization” that would dominate American strategic policy 
for the next decade. 3 

While the president considered political reform and economic 
development to be the key weapons against communism, he did not 
neglect the Cold War’s military aspects. He abandoned Eisenhower’s 
nuclear-oriented doctrine in favor of a strategy of “flexible response” 
designed to meet every form of Communist aggression without having 
to use nuclear weapons. He initiated a major buildup that by 1965 had 
added five new divisions and nearly $10 billion worth of new materiel 
to the U.S. Army. He also authorized the Army to recast its combat 
divisions into a new organization, the Reorganization Objective Army 
Division (ROAD), whose conventionally oriented, flexible structure 
was much more adaptable to the president’s purposes than the nuclear- 
oriented pentomic division of the Eisenhower era. 4 

But improving America’s ability to wage wars without resorting 
to nuclear weapons was only part of the president’s program. More 
important in his mind were initiatives designed to meet the threat 
posed by “sub-limited” war—guerrilla action, insurgency, and sub¬ 
version. Kennedy shared the view voiced by fellow politician Hubert 
H. Humphrey that Maoist revolutionary warfare represented noth¬ 
ing less than “a bold new form of aggression which could rank in 
military importance with the invention of gunpowder.” The politicians 
were not alone in this assessment, as many social scientists, strate¬ 
gists, and commentators also propounded this view. In answer to the 
president’s call to arms, the nation’s intellectuals rushed to put forward 


224 





The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


various theories about the insurgency threat, creating in the process 
an atmosphere of “overthink” similar to that which had prevailed in 
the 1950s with regard to nuclear warfare. Fascinated by the black arts 
of guerrilla warfare, espionage, and propaganda and convinced that 
Maoist revolutionary warfare was qualitatively different than anything 
heretofore known, Kennedy insisted that “it is nonsense to think that 
regular forces trained for conventional war can handle jungle guer¬ 
rillas adequately.” Consequently, he demanded that the Army devise 
“a wholly new kind of strategy; a wholly different kind of force and 
therefore a new and different kind of military training” to meet what 
he considered to be the preeminent threat of the day. 5 

For the most part, the Army responded positively to President 
Kennedy’s security initiatives. It strongly supported the new doctrine 
of flexible response, accepted the necessity of developing counter¬ 
measures to Communist insurgent warfare, and readily embraced both 
Rostow’s theory about the revolution of rising expectations and the 
president’s nation-building counterstrategy. Although many officers 
felt uncomfortable with suggestions that they be transformed from 
warriors into social engineers, they challenged neither the importance 
of political considerations in counterinsurgency nor the notion that 
specialists were required to deal with insurgency’s many political and 
social facets. As Army Chief of Staff General George H. Decker him¬ 
self conceded, 

our splendid field armies in Europe and Korea and in reserve in the United 
States ... are designed for conventional and tactical nuclear warfare. Their 
purpose is to meet clearly-defined, large-scale military threats. Obviously 
these units are not the proper response to a band of guerrillas which in a flash 
will transform itself into a scattering of “farmers.” Neither are they best geared 
to move into a weak country and help it move up the development ladder by 
training local forces to improve the people’s health, transportation, and build¬ 
ing program . 6 

Moreover, the Army maintained that introducing large ground 
forces into a highly charged nationalistic environment could well prove 
to be the “kiss of death” for the government the United States was try¬ 
ing to aid. Consequently, it shared the president’s interest in creating 
small, specialist formations and of improving the nation’s advisory 
and assistance programs. This was evidenced by Decker’s 1960 recom¬ 
mendations to increase the size of Special Forces and to create Cold 
War task forces, proposals that eventually bore fruit in the form of the 
Special Action Forces and the SAF backup brigades. But at this point, 
Decker and the president parted company. For Kennedy was not content 


225 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Army Chief of Staff General Decker chats with soldiers who were playing 
the role of villagers during a counterguerrilla training exercise. 


with making minor adjustments around the edges of American defense 
policy. Rather, he wanted to transform the entire U.S. Army, both 
mentally and structurally, into the type of politically astute, socially 
conscious, and guerrilla-savvy force that he believed was necessary to 
combat Maoist-style revolutions—and General Decker did not. 7 

To begin with, Decker questioned the wisdom of overhauling the 
military to meet third world contingencies on the grounds that “our 
primary interest must be in Europe. With the exception of Japan, 
the areas of the East have nothing to contribute toward our survival. 
Therefore we could lose in Asia without losing everything, but to 
lose in Europe would be fatal.” Indeed, the Army had a very practi¬ 
cal dilemma—the president insisted that it restructure itself without 
jeopardizing its other missions, including the defense of Europe and 
Korea. Lacking the time, money, and manpower to create different 
armies for different types of warfare, the Army favored a more grad¬ 
ual introduction of counterinsurgency than the president was willing 
to tolerate.' 

Although he did not doubt that the United States needed to be 
able to fight guerrillas effectively, Decker also challenged Kennedy’s 
assertion that conventional soldiers were incapable of defeating 
irregulars. He regarded such talk as excessive and ahistorical, believ¬ 
ing instead that, with proper preparation, “any good soldier can 
handle guerrillas.” He was not alone, as many other military leaders, 


226 




The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


including Joint Chiefs Chairman General Lyman L. Lemnitzer; the 
president’s personal military adviser and future chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs, General Maxwell D. Taylor; and Marine Corps Maj. Gen. 
Victor H. Krulak, the Joint Chiefs’ point man for counterinsurgency, 
shared Decker’s opinion. 4 

Kennedy regarded such sentiments as heresy and attempted to 
quash them. During his three-year tenure the president issued no fewer 
than twenty-three National Security Action Memorandums pertaining 
to counterinsurgency—formal ukases that demanded immediate com¬ 
pliance. He peppered his military advisers with questions, scrutinized 
their answers closely, and requested periodic updates on the state of the 
counterinsurgency program. He let everyone know that he considered 
counterinsurgency experience to be an important factor in determin¬ 
ing promotions, and many believed that he did not renew Generals 
Decker’s and Lemnitzer’s tenures on the grounds that they had failed 
to demonstrate sufficient enthusiasm for his counterinsurgency initia¬ 
tives. Finally, in January 1962 Kennedy formed an interagency task 
force, the Special Group (Counterinsurgency), with the mission of 
ensuring “proper recognition throughout the United States government 
that subversive insurgency (‘wars of liberation’) is a major form of 
politico-military conflict equal in importance to conventional warfare,” 
and “that such recognition is reflected in the organization, training, 
equipment and doctrine of the United States armed forces and other 
United States agencies.” 111 

In pressing his agenda the president was not without allies within 
the Army, including Brig. Gen. William P. Yarborough, commander of 
the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, and Brig. Gen. William B. 
Rosson, the special assistant to the chief of staff for special warfare 
activities. Together with elements drawn largely from the Special 
Forces, psyops, and civil affairs communities, these “young moderns” 
advanced Kennedy’s agenda from within with some success. But 
this success came at a price, for like all bureaucratic institutions, the 
Army cherished its institutional autonomy, and many soldiers resented 
Kennedy’s interference in what they believed were internal matters that 
were best left to professionals. 11 

The Army was not alone in opposing aspects of the president’s 
counterinsurgency initiative. The State Department flatly resisted 
the more operational role that the president expected it to play in 
orchestrating the counterinsurgency effort. There also existed in 
the State Department a core of officials who “appeared to consider 
problems of internal conflict a diversion from their main interest of 
foreign policy and diplomacy, and something that would, if played 


227 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



President Kennedy talks with General Yarborough at 
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 


down long enough, eventually be resolved in the normal course of 
international relations.” Similar sentiments existed within the Agency 
for International Development (AID), which resisted suggestions that 
it abandon its traditional long-term development projects for more 
short-term, civic action-type activities—activities that the agency 
tended to dismiss as gimmickry. AID showed equal disinterest in 
improving indigenous police forces, a key counterinsurgency pro¬ 
gram that it controlled but which seemed out of step with its primary 
socioeconomic mission. Finally, all civilian agencies feared that the 
counterinsurgency movement represented a militarization of policy 
that would give military men influence in areas that had previously 
been the exclusive domain of civilians, a fear that further impeded 
interagency coordination. In fact, Kennedy created the Special Group 
in 1962 largely due to frustration over the unwillingness of civilian 
agencies to jump on the counterinsurgency bandwagon. 12 

Nevertheless, foot dragging—perceived or real—on the part of 
the Army usually brought the strongest reaction from the president. 
Given the innate tendency of bureaucracies to resist outside interfer¬ 
ence, the president believed that he had to keep the pressure on if he 
was to have any hope of seeing the government adopt his programs 
in a speedy fashion. But deep down, many soldiers continued to feel 
uncomfortable with a process that they believed had politicized mili¬ 
tary doctrine. 13 


228 









The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


Sources of Doctrine 

Misgivings aside, the Army moved with due diligence in formulat¬ 
ing a doctrine for defeating wars of national liberation. In the process, 
its doctrine writers cast a wide net. They consulted outside experts, 
examined published works, and sponsored research. They read the 
works of Mao Tse-tung and the Cuban revolutionary Ernesto “Che” 
Guevara, whose 1960 book, On Guerrilla Warfare , the Army rushed to 
translate. Military doctrine writers also mined recent counterinsurgen¬ 
cy operations for nuggets of useful information. Because of the covert 
nature of American activities in Laos, relatively little emerged from 
that conflict into the broader doctrinal world. On the other hand, the 
Army made a concerted effort to acquire, digest, and disseminate the 
latest lessons generated by the growing insurgency in South Vietnam. 
In addition to circulating pertinent reports produced by the Military 
Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), the Army established the 
Army Concept Team in Vietnam, which used the burgeoning insurgen¬ 
cy as a laboratory to test new organizations, equipment, and techniques. 
Still, in the early 1960s Vietnam experiences worked mainly along the 
edges of doctrine, adding a technique here or a bit of emphasis there 
but not changing doctrine’s core principles. 14 

Compared with America’s ongoing and as yet inconclusive advi¬ 
sory operations in Southeast Asia, the lessons of conflicts already 
concluded seemed both clearer and more readily available, and con¬ 
sequently the Army took great pains to study the many irregular con¬ 
flicts that had occurred over the previous twenty years. Although the 
Army continued to examine Wehrmacht techniques, it focused most 
of its historical inquiries on more recent conflicts." The two the Army 
studied most were the Malayan emergency and the Huk rebellion. The 
popularity of these events stemmed both from a desire to emulate suc¬ 
cess and from the fact that information pertaining to them was readily 
available in English. As in the late 1950s the Army turned to the British 
for examples of civil-military coordination and administration, jungle 
tactics, and population-control techniques. From the Philippines, the 
Army derived examples of the roles that intelligence, psychological 
warfare, and civic action played in suppressing unrest. Unfortunately, 
the overwhelming popularity of the Malayan and the Philippine cases 
led to a relatively uncritical acceptance of the alleged lessons of these 
conflicts. All too often Americans saw only what they wanted to see 
in these two episodes. They tended to overestimate the ease and extent 
to which resettlement programs and political reforms had won the 
hearts and minds of the people while ignoring contradictory evidence 


229 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


and minimizing the role that coercion had contributed to the success 
of these campaigns. 16 Not until they had had some direct experiences 
of their own would Americans begin to question some of their earlier 
Malayan- and Philippine-based assumptions. 

The Army’s infatuation with Malaya and the Philippines notwith¬ 
standing, the service did not ignore the French experience. As it had 
done during the previous decade, the Army monitored ongoing opera¬ 
tions in Algeria and continued to translate and distribute French texts to 
instructors and doctrine writers. 17 Most Army schools examined either 
the Indochinese or Algerian civil wars in their curriculums, assisted in 
some cases by French liaison officers like Lt. Col. Paul Aussaresses, 
who visited both the Infantry and Special Warfare schools in the early 
1960s. Interested officers could further their studies by consulting a 
variety of books and articles that appeared on these two conflicts in 
the early 1960s, including the works of journalist/political scientist 
Bernard Fall, who was a popular speaker at Army institutions despite 
his criticism of American methods in South Vietnam. 1 " Such study 
was not idle curiosity, for according to General Yarborough, special 
warfare doctrine writers consciously employed guerre revolutionnaire 
theory when fashioning doctrinal tracts. 10 Though Americans admired 
aspects of French doctrine, most continued to treat French operations in 
Indochina as a paradigm for how not to wage a counterinsurgency. 

As in the 1950s, Army analysts believed France had lost the 
Indochina War due to its shortsighted colonial policies that neither 
recognized the legitimacy of Vietnamese nationalism nor introduced 
any significant political, social, or economic reforms to win the support 
of the Vietnamese people. Army commentators also noted that France 
had not committed sufficient forces to win the war, in part due to a 
lack of public support back home, which had put the French military 
in the unenviable position of trying “to maintain a position of strength 
from which some sort of ‘honorable’ settlement might be negotiated.” 
Militarily, Army documents criticized the French for fighting conven¬ 
tionally, for moving in road-bound columns, and for dispersing their 
forces in a myriad of small, static posts that robbed them of the initia¬ 
tive. Although U.S. soldiers conceded that there were not always easy 
solutions to the problems the French had faced, many of them believed 
that the reform-oriented, offensive doctrine they were crafting would 
allow the United States to avoid many of the mistakes France had made 
in Indochina. 20 

While the Army examined recent foreign experiences with insur¬ 
gency, it generally ignored its own rich heritage in irregular warfare. 
True, Army leaders liked to brag about legendary guerrilla fighters 


230 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


of yesteryear—Robert Rogers and his Rangers during the French 
and Indian War, George Crook in Apacheria, J. Franklin Bell in the 
Philippines, and John J. Pershing, who fought bandits from Moroland 
to Mexico. The exploits of such men may have been relevant had the 
Army actually made a determined effort to remember and document 
them. In fact, most soldiers had only the vaguest impressions about the 
old Army’s counterinsurgency and constabulary operations. Nor did the 
Army make much of an effort to correct this deficiency, since it shared 
the popular belief that distant wars involving obsolescent technologies 
and pre-Communist organizations could not possibly be relevant to 
understanding modern insurgency. 21 

If the Army ignored its own past, there was one source of American 
knowledge of which the manual writers of the 1960s did take full 
advantage—the Army’s own doctrine as developed in the 1950s. In 
word, thought, and concept, the U.S. Army’s response in the 1960s to 
the threat of Communist revolutionary warfare ultimately rested in 
large part on recycling the lessons Colonel Volckmann had derived a 
decade earlier from his study of partisan warfare in World War II. Thus, 
while examinations of recent foreign experiences would add richness 
and depth to the Army’s understanding of insurgency, they would not 
fundamentally alter it. 

The Doctrine Development System 

Doctrine may be about ideas, but like so many other human 
endeavors its final form is frequently influenced as much by the pro¬ 
cess through which it is created as the ideas themselves. In the case of 
counterinsurgency, the development of doctrine was complicated both 
by the nature of the subject and the organization of the Army’s doctrinal 
development system. 

Between 1942 and 1962 a succession of major Army commands- 
Army Ground Forces (1942-1948), Army Field Forces (1948-1955), 
and Continental Army Command (1955-1962)—had overseen the 
Army’s doctrinal, educational, and training activities. Under their 
supervision, school faculties, select committees, or specially chosen 
individuals like Volckmann had drafted Army manuals. For the most 
part, Army schools wrote and disseminated doctrine pertaining to their 
particular branch of service, while the Command and General Staff 
College prepared upper-level combined arms doctrine. By the early 
1960s, however, the Army had decided that the fast pace of technologi¬ 
cal change had made the task of developing and inculcating doctrine 
too difficult for one agency. Consequently, in 1962 General Decker 


231 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


split these functions between Continental Army Command (CONARC) 
at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and a new entity, Combat Developments 
Command (CDC), at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

According to the arrangement, Combat Developments Command 
was responsible for determining the Army’s future needs and develop¬ 
ing broad policies and concepts to meet them. It was then to publish 
these overarching concepts in doctrinal manuals. The Continental Army 
Command, on the other hand, retained control of the Army’s educa¬ 
tional and training system. It was responsible for teaching CDC doc¬ 
trine as well as for developing the tactics, techniques, and procedures 
necessary to implement the broad concepts contained in CDC manuals. 
Continental Army Command published these applicatory techniques 
in what the Army termed training manuals. To facilitate coordination 
and communication between the two commands, CDC collocated a 
doctrine development agency at each CONARC school. Thus the CDC 
Infantry Agency at Fort Benning, Georgia, developed infantry doctrine, 
while CONARC’s Infantry School, also at Fort Benning, developed 
tactics and techniques to implement that doctrine while teaching the 
combined CDC-CONARC material to its students. 

After a CDC field agency had drafted a manual, it would forward 
the draft to an intermediary CDC group headquarters for review. 
Once other CDC field-level agencies had had a chance to comment 
on the proposed manual, the manual would next be sent up through 
CDC headquarters to a newly created entity on the Pentagon’s Army 
Staff—the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development 
(OACSFOR)—which in 1963 assumed from the deputy chief of staff 
for military operations responsibility for doctrinal development and 
manual production within the Army. After coordinating the proposed 
doctrine within the Army Staff, OACSFOR would either return the 
manual to Combat Developments Command for revision or forward it 
to the Office of the Adjutant General for publication. 

Although Decker had created Combat Developments Command 
to improve the Army’s ability to adapt to a fast changing world, the 
process proved cumbersome. CONARC and CDC did not always 
coordinate their actions as closely as they should, and for the Army 
to take up to three years to produce a manual under the new system 
was not unusual. This was clearly an impediment given the urgency 
for developing and disseminating new doctrine for counterinsurgency. 
The fact that the counterinsurgency wave hit the Army at a time when 
it was in the midst of reorganizing its doctrinal system merely exac¬ 
erbated the already difficult task of developing and integrating new 
concepts. 22 


232 




The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


Anxious that counterinsurgency not become lost in the organi¬ 
zational shuffle, General Decker created a temporary Remote Area 
Conflict Office to expedite the development of counterinsurgency 
doctrine. Once Combat Developments Command was up and running, 
the Army replaced the office in October 1962 with a permanent CDC 
group-level headquarters, the Special Doctrine and Equipment Group. 
Located at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the group (which the Army renamed 
the Special Warfare Group in 1963) worked to ensure that counterin¬ 
surgency doctrine was properly incorporated into all applicable manu¬ 
als. Much of the group’s day-to-day work in this regard fell upon its 
subordinate field element, the CDC Special Warfare Agency at Fort 
Bragg, North Carolina. In addition to writing doctrine for Special 
Forces, psychological operations, and military advisory activities, the 
Special Warfare Agency developed basic counterinsurgency doctrine 
and reviewed manuals developed by other Army agencies for counter¬ 
insurgency content. 2 ' This was not a simple task. 

To begin with, the Army had several hundred field manuals in its 
inventory, many of which the Special Warfare Agency would have to 
review periodically for possible inclusion of counterinsurgency mate¬ 
rial. In addition to the heavy work load this created for the Special 
Warfare Agency, the fact that counterinsurgency cut across branch and 
functional lines created a certain degree of conceptual and bureaucratic 
friction between it and other CDC entities. The parent agencies for 
the Army’s numerous branch and functional manuals did not always 
concur with the special warfare community about the degree to which 
their manuals needed to incorporate counterinsurgency-related mate¬ 
rial. Moreover, some confusion existed between the Special Warfare 
Agency and other agencies over proponency for certain aspects of 
counterinsurgency doctrine. For example, the Civil Affairs Agency at 
Fort Gordon, Georgia, believed that the Special Warfare Agency did not 
pay it proper deference with regard to counterinsurgency’s many civil 
aspects for which Fort Gordon held proponency. 

The Army tried to improve the coordination between these two 
agencies in 1964 by transferring control of the Civil Affairs Agency 
from the Combat Service Support Group to the Special Warfare Group, 
which the Army redesignated the Special Warfare and Civil Affairs 
Group. However, other tensions simmered between the Special Warfare 
Agency and the Infantry Agency, which developed tactical counterguer¬ 
rilla doctrine, as well as the Institute for Advanced Studies at Carlisle 
Barracks, Pennsylvania, which formulated broad. Army-wide concepts, 
and the Command and General Staff College and its associated CDC 
agency, the Combined Warfare Agency, which held proponency for all 


233 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


doctrinal matters at the army, corps, and division level. Ultimately, all 
of these agencies and their related CONARC institutions would at one 
time or another hold proponency for some aspects of counterinsurgency 
doctrine, and the friction that sometimes developed between them 
adversely affected the formulation of doctrine. 24 

The Evolution of Doctrine, 1961—1964 

The Army published its first response to the president’s counterin¬ 
surgency drive—FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces —just 
four months after Kennedy assumed office. The rapid appearance of 
this manual stemmed from the fact that the Command and General 
Staff College had written the bulk of it prior to Kennedy’s election. 
The manual, which replaced FM 31-15, Operations Against Airborne 
Attack, Guerrilla Action, and Infiltration (1953), provided broad guid¬ 
ance concerning the conduct of counterguerrilla operations, repeating 
and amplifying the doctrine that had just been published a few months 
before in FM 100-1. 

Operations Against Irregular Forces opened with the premise that 
guerrilla warfare was merely the “outward manifestation” of public 
disenchantment with certain political, social, and economic conditions. 
This premise led to two conclusions: first, that a guerrilla movement 
required at least some degree of public support to flourish, and second, 
that the only permanent solution to an insurgency was to rectify the 
conditions that had given rise to it in the first place. Military action, 
unaccompanied by meaningful reforms, could at best suppress, but 
never completely eradicate, a heartfelt revolutionary movement. 2 ' 

FM 31-15 (1961) followed the 1960 ODCSOPS handbook in 
identifying four tasks that had to be achieved to defeat guerrillas and 
prevent their resurgence. First and foremost, government authorities 
had to establish an effective intelligence system. Second, through a 
combination of military and police measures, the Army had to separate 
the irregulars both physically and psychologically from the population 
and all sources of support—internal and external. Third, the Army had 
to destroy the guerrillas as a military force. Finally, the government 
would have to reeducate the dissidents, rebuild damaged institutions, 
and redress the causes of discontent. 

To help commanders accomplish these tasks the manual offered 
five operational principles. The first principle was unity of command, 
as it recommended that a single person be placed in charge of all civil 
and military counterinsurgency programs at each level of command. 
Corollaries to this principle included the need to develop an integrated 


234 




The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


politico-military campaign plan, the desirability of maintaining conti¬ 
nuity ol personnel in a particular area to promote regional expertise, 
and the utility ol creating a combined command to coordinate the 
activities of U.S. and indigenous military forces. The remaining prin¬ 
ciples also stressed concepts that had appeared in previous American 
doctrine—respect for human rights, offensive operations, and the cre¬ 
ation of mobile task lorces. Finally, the manual reiterated that police, 
combat, and political operations all had to be conducted simultaneously 
throughout the course of a campaign, despite the fact that in any partic¬ 
ular stage one ol those methods might predominate over the others. 26 

Like earlier writings, FM 31-15 (1961) adopted a strategy of pro¬ 
gressive area clearance. The force commander would establish regional 
commands, normally along existing political boundaries, in order to 
facilitate civil-military coordination. Within each region, subareas 
would be created, with each being cleared in turn according to govern¬ 
ment priorities and troop availability. Once an area was cleared, the 
commander would leave behind a sufficient number of troops, backed 
by a large number of police, paramilitary, and village defense forces, to 
prevent a guerrilla resurgence, while the bulk of the soldiers moved on 
to the next area to be cleared. 

The manual enumerated four types of military operations that 
were to be conducted during a counterguerrilla campaign: reaction 
operations , in which mobile reserves responded to guerrilla sightings 
or actions; harassment operations , in which small patrols and raiding 
parties beleaguered the enemy, keeping him fragmented and on the 
move; denial operations that sought to block guerrilla access to exter¬ 
nal sources of supply; and elimination operations that were offensive 
actions designed to destroy guerrilla units once intelligence or recon¬ 
naissance forces had “definitely located” them. The manual repeated 
earlier doctrine in making the destruction of the enemy, not the capture 
of ground, the primary objective, prescribing encirclement as the most 
effective, if admittedly difficult, means of achieving this end. 27 

While military operations broke up the irregulars and drove them 
away from populated areas, FM 31-15 (1961) prescribed a variety of 
intelligence, psychological warfare, civic action, and police measures 
to complete the separation of the guerrillas from the people. In line 
with previous doctrine, the manual required that commanders achieve a 
delicate balance between benevolence and repression. Thus, the manual 
advised that “persons whose property is searched and whose goods are 
seized should be irritated and frightened to such an extent that they 
will neither harbor irregular force members nor support them in the 
future. Conversely, the action must not be so harsh as to drive them to 


235 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


collaboration with the irregular force because of resentment.” Humane 
treatment of prisoners, correct behavior toward inhabitants, and civic 
actions were, when necessary, to be supplemented by strict controls 
over assembly, movement, and the possession of food, arms, and medi¬ 
cine. The manual authorized commanders to relocate populations from 
insecure areas to places where they could be more readily monitored 
and protected and recommended instituting a pao chia -style system in 
which villagers spied on their neighbors. 2 " 

FM 31-15 (1961) recommended several modifications that might 
be necessary in conducting a counterguerrilla war. It listed planning 
factors to be considered and highlighted the important roles civic action 
and intelligence operations would play. It recommended that command¬ 
ers augment standard infantry battalions with additional rifle compa¬ 
nies, an artillery battery, aviation, and detachments of intelligence, 
psychological warfare, civil affairs, and military police personnel, not 
unlike the battalion combat teams that U.S. advisers had developed 
during the Huk rebellion. Finally, the manual echoed earlier doctrine 
in pointing out the unique moral and psychological aspects associated 
with guerrilla warfare. Among these were frustration born from an 
inability to achieve tangible results against an elusive foe, disenchant¬ 
ment derived from prolonged service under primitive living conditions 
among an alien population, and fear of guerrilla atrocities. FM 31-15 
(1961) also noted the corrosive effects of several conflicting emotions: 
the desire to retaliate against civilians for guerrilla misdeeds, “the 
ingrained reluctance of the soldier to take repressive measures against 
women, children, and old men who usually are active in both overt 
and covert irregular activities or who must be resettled or concentrated 
for security reasons,” and “the sympathy of some soldiers with certain 
stated objectives of the resistance movement such as relief from oppres¬ 
sion.” For these and other dilemmas the manual offered no solutions 
other than those prescribed a decade earlier by Volckmann—intensive 
training, troop indoctrination, and dynamic leaderships 

Operations Against Irregular Forces established the basic outline 
of Army counterinsurgency doctrine for the next few years. Subsequent 
manuals would amplify and clarify it, adding a few new concepts and 
updating its language, but truly substantive changes would be few. FM 
31-15 (1961) was not, however, meant to be the Army’s final word 
on the subject. Two major areas remained to be addressed. First, the 
broad themes contained in the manual needed to be fleshed out with 
applicatory methods and techniques. Conversely, the Army believed 
that FM 31-15 (1961) needed to be placed in a broader strategic con¬ 
text. This was especially important given counterinsurgency’s many 


236 



The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


political aspects and the administration’s professed desire to approach 
the problem on an interagency basis. But such a doctrine was not the 
Army s to make, as it required policy decisions at the highest levels of 
government. Still, as the first agency to have published a counterguer¬ 
rilla doctrine of any sort, the Army was well positioned to influence 
events as they unfolded. 

The first step on the road to formulating a national counterinsur¬ 
gency doctrine occurred nearly a year after the Army had published FM 
31—15. In April 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a document titled 
“Joint Counterinsurgency Concept and Doctrinal Guidance.” Based 
chiefly on input from the Army Staff, the joint concept established 
broad guidelines for the military services as they developed organiza¬ 
tions and doctrines to meet the threat of Communist insurgency. The 
document called for unified action by all government agencies—U.S. 
and foreign alike—to create a “fully integrated, mutually supporting 
and concurrently applied” mesh of political, military, and socioeco¬ 
nomic programs. Such an approach was essential, “since economic and 
political progress are dependent upon reasonable internal security, and 
internal security cannot be permanently effective without complement¬ 
ing non-military action.” 30 

The Joint Chiefs established three roles for the U.S. military as 
part of the national counterinsurgency program: providing advice 
and assistance in nation building, furnishing advice and assistance in 
counterguerrilla operations, and undertaking direct combat action. The 
extent of military activity in each of these areas was pegged to the three 
stages of a Maoist insurgency. In the first phase, when insurgency was 
still latent, U.S. military advisers were to concentrate their efforts on 
improving the indigenous military’s civic action, security, and counter¬ 
guerrilla capabilities. In phase two, under conditions of active guerrilla 
warfare, the Americans would continue and intensify these efforts. 
Finally, should the insurgency escalate into a full-blown phase three 
conflict, the United States as a last resort might intervene. Should it 
do so, the joint concept called for the commitment of soldiers trained 
in the military, social, and psychological aspects of insurgency, as well 
as the language and culture of the afflicted area. The Joint Chiefs also 
directed that “U.S. military units employed in any counterinsurgency 
role will be tailored to the conditions where insurgency exists. Use of 
large combat units will be avoided.” Such stipulations, together with 
the injunction that military agencies were to develop individuals for 
counterinsurgency duty, indicated that the Pentagon envisioned its role 
largely as an advisory one—an approach that reflected administration 
policy. 31 


237 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


In the joint concept the Joint Chiefs of Staff assigned to the Army 
the task of developing counterinsurgency tactics, techniques, and doc¬ 
trine for both itself and the Marine Corps. However, the Joint Staff 
established a broad conceptual framework within which Army doctrine 
would have to operate. Thus the joint concept asserted that the basic 
function of military forces was to “insulate the people from the insur¬ 
gents both physically and psychologically; win and maintain popular 
respect, support, and confidence.” To achieve these ends, military 
forces were to seal populated areas, clear them of guerrillas, and hold 
them against the possibility of a guerrilla resurgence. Operations were 
to be continuous, aggressive, and varied, using ruses and deception 
to keep the enemy off-balance. Meanwhile, the military would assist 
police and government officials in eliminating the last vestiges of civil¬ 
ian support for the insurgents through a combination of civic and psy¬ 
chological actions, counterintelligence activities, security operations, 
and “appropriate reprisals.” 32 

The importance of the joint concept stemmed from the fact that it 
imposed on the military services a doctrinal vision that was virtually 
identical to the views already held by the Army. It could not, however, 
definitively address the larger issues of national policy and the inter¬ 
action of civil-military agencies. Such policies required higher-level 
action—action that occurred in September 1962 when the National 
Security Council formally published a government-wide counterinsur¬ 
gency doctrine, known as the Overseas Internal Defense Policy (OIDP). 

The OIDP made Rostow’s nation-building theory the official 
policy of the United States government. It enunciated in a formal way 
Kennedy’s threefold strategy of applying sociopolitical reforms, eco¬ 
nomic stimuli, and military assistance as both prophylactics and rem¬ 
edies for the disease of Communist insurgency. Like the joint concept, 
the OIDP embraced the Maoist model of revolutionary warfare, using it 
as a framework around which to build American countermeasures. The 
policy asserted that political, social, and economic reform, not repres¬ 
sion, were the keys to defeating subversion. The OIDP also established 
as policy the notion that the job of defeating an insurgency rested pri¬ 
marily upon the indigenous government, not the United States. Finally, 
the OIDP called for the creation of a well-integrated, seamless counter¬ 
insurgency effort on the part of all elements of the federal government, 
assigning particular roles to the Departments of State and Defense, the 
CIA, AID, and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). 33 

Although the OIDP fulfilled the Army’s desire for a formal enun¬ 
ciation of national policy, the document had several weaknesses. First, 
it was, in the words of one of its principal architects, a “somewhat 


238 



The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


simplistic document,” whose broad prescriptions were inadequate to 
meet what was in reality a highly complex world. Second, while the 
OIDP had assigned roles and missions, it had not detailed how the 
actions of the various agencies would be integrated into a cohesive 
whole other than through the coordinative powers of the Special Group 
(Counterinsurgency) in Washington and, at the country level, through 
the ambassador. Since both entities were given only the power to moni¬ 
tor and coordinate, rather than direct and control, there was in fact very 
little to ensure the necessary integration of effort. The Army would 
complain for several years that the absence of a well-integrated system 
for executing the national counterinsurgency program greatly impeded 
its efforts, both doctrinally and operationally. 34 

Finally, the OIDP suffered from a third major weakness, one that 
its authors recognized but for which they did not have an answer. For 
if, as the doctrine asserted, insurgency was the product of social, eco¬ 
nomic, and political inequities that were not being addressed by indig¬ 
enous authorities, what confidence could the United States have that it 
would be able to persuade these very same people to adopt American- 
proffered reforms? While the OIDP proudly showcased Ramon 
Magsaysay as an example of what could be achieved when an able 
leader listened to American advice, there was little guarantee that the 
United States would always be so fortunate. Indeed, the OIDP con¬ 
ceded that U.S. officials would be confronted with indigenous elites 
who benefited from the status quo and who would exhibit “deep- 
seated emotional, cultural, and proprietary resistance to any change 
that diminishes power and privilege, regardless of how unrealistic and 
short-sighted this stubbornness may seem objectively.” 35 

Given America’s reluctance to intervene directly, the OIDP saw only 
two options when confronted by a recalcitrant regime. Either the United 
States could threaten to withhold aid until the indigenous government 
implemented reforms, or it could employ covert means to change the 
political landscape of the country in question, possibly resulting in the 
removal of particularly obstinate leaders. Neither option was very pal¬ 
atable, and thus the old dilemma of leverage would continue to bedevil 
any counterinsurgency action undertaken by the United States. 36 

Like the joint concept, the OIDP was of great importance to the 
Army because it established the basic policy positions that Army doc¬ 
trine would have to reflect. Nevertheless, it had very little effect on the 
shape of Army doctrine, largely because the document echoed positions 
that had already been adopted by both the Army and the Pentagon. 
In fact, the National Security Council had relied heavily on the Joint 
Chief’s joint concept when it had written the OIDP. 37 


239 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


While national authorities spent most of 1962 crafting overarching 
policies, the Army did not remain idle. Due to both the newness of the 
subject and its perceived importance, the Army adopted a two-pronged 
approach in developing counterinsurgency doctrine. The first approach 
involved integrating broad counterinsurgency principles into as many 
manuals as possible, folding the material in whenever a manual came 
up for routine review and revision. Perhaps the most important example 
of this approach occurred in February 1962, when the Army published 
a new edition of FM 100-5, Operations , that included new chapters 
on situations short of war, guerrilla warfare, counterguerrilla warfare, 
and airmobile operations. All told. Cold War- and counterinsurgency- 
related subjects accounted for about 20 percent of this widely read 
manual. In actuality, the manual contained little that was new, as it 
merely summarized the basic principles already established in FM 
31-15 the year before. Still, the increased visibility that the manual 
afforded counterinsurgency and contingency operations represented a 
major milestone that helped solidify their places as important missions 
within the Army. 38 

While the integration of counterinsurgency principles into exist¬ 
ing manuals proceeded, the Army also advanced on a second track, 
developing new tactics and techniques to help soldiers implement FM 
31-15’s broad principles. Perhaps the best examples of this approach in 
1962 were FM 33-5, Psychological Operations , and FM 41-10, Civil 
Affairs Operations. Of the two, Psychological Operations , written at 
Fort Bragg, was the more progressive. It revised the 1955 edition of 
FM 33-5 by adding new chapters on the important role psychological 
operations played in insurgencies and situations short of war. It was 
also the first manual to employ such cutting edge terms as counterin¬ 
surgency and nation building. The manual impressed upon its readers 
that “no tactical counterinsurgency program can be effective without 
major nation building programs. The causes for unrest must be in the 
process of reduction for the successful counterinsurgency operation. 
This implies extensive political, economic, and social reform.” 39 

FM 41-10 (1962), prepared by the Civil Affairs School at Fort 
Gordon, agreed with this philosophy. Although the bulk of this manual 
was dedicated to conventional operations, it strongly endorsed civic 
action, defined as “any function performed by military forces in 
cooperation with civil authorities, agencies, or groups through the use 
of military manpower and material resources for the socio-economic 
well-being and improvement of the civil community with a goal of 
building or reinforcing mutual respect and fellowship between the civil 
and military communities.” Based on recent experience, FM 41-10 


240 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


(1962) examined the organization and function of civic action advi¬ 
sory teams and related lessons regarding the implementation of a civic 
action program. It stated that projects originated by the local population 
were more likely to succeed than those imposed from above by well- 
meaning, but often ignorant and ethnocentric advisers. The manual 
concluded that a project must have a fairly short completion time, both 
because military units moved frequently and because the government 
needed to win public support in the present, rather than in the distant 
future. Finally, FM 41-10 (1962) advised soldiers to coordinate all of 
their civic action projects with civilian agencies to ensure that those 
activities would complement, and not compete, with the efforts of other 
government elements. 40 

While FMs 33-5 and 41-10 added depth to the Army’s under¬ 
standing of its role in an insurgency, the Army pressed ahead with the 
development of counterguerrilla tactics and techniques. This effort had 
begun in December 1961, when the Army had directed the Command 
and General Staff College to flesh out the principles established in FM 
31-15 (1961). After completing an initial draft in early 1962, CGSC 
handed the project over to the Infantry School. The effort came to frui¬ 
tion in February 1963 as FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations . 4I 

Counterguerrilla Operations added detail to the multiphased and 
multifaceted area control strategy called for in FM 31-15 (1961). 
Reflecting an appreciation for counterinsurgency’s uniquely local and 
decentralized nature, as well as the belief that deployments larger than 
a division were unlikely, FM 31-16 established the brigade as the basic 
operational and command element. The manual envisioned that a bri¬ 
gade would be assigned to control a geographical area. Upon arrival, it 
would establish a main base camp and subsidiary installations, further 
subdividing the region into battalion and company operating areas, 
with each level of command retaining a mobile (preferably airmo¬ 
bile) reserve reaction force. Like FM 31-15 (1961), Counterguerrilla 
Operations placed special emphasis on accumulating intelligence, for 
“in counterguerrilla operations, the commander is even more deeply 
dependent upon intelligence and counterintelligence than in con¬ 
ventional warfare situations.” Noting that, “the unit which conducts 
counterguerrilla operations without sound intelligence wastes time, 
materiel, and troop effort,” the manual urged commanders to tap every 
conceivable resource to acquire a coherent picture of a region’s politi¬ 
cal, social, and military topography. 42 

Included among the seven pages the manual devoted to intelligence 
matters were suggestions concerning methods and techniques appropri¬ 
ate for insurgency situations. The manual recommended maintaining 


241 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


personality files on guerrilla leaders and asserted that friends and 
family of known guerrillas were “valuable as sources of information, 
as hostages, and as bait for traps that can be laid for guerrillas visiting 
them.” Conversely, the manual recognized that insurgents usually had 
excellent intelligence sources of their own, a fact that demanded that 
military forces exercise the utmost secrecy if they were ever to have 
a hope of catching the irregulars. To help even the odds, FM 31-16 
recommended that commanders leak false information, manipulate 
suspected enemy agents, and employ cover operations and deception 
plans to outfox the enemy as to the Army’s true intentions. 43 

Having established itself in a region, the brigade’s next step was to 
separate the irregulars from the population. Off the battlefield, the gov¬ 
ernment would achieve this goal through police and security measures, 
intelligence operations, civic actions, and propaganda. The manual 
described each of these in turn, stressing the necessity of weaving them 
together into a seamless whole with the help of Malayan-style civil- 
military pacification committees in each brigade and battalion sector. 
Recognizing that the task of securing the population “should never be 
deemphasized,” FM 31-16 called for the creation of large police and 
village defense forces and the imposition of effective measures to con¬ 
trol the behavior and resources of the civilian population. 44 

While never minimizing the importance of positive measures, FM 
31-16 paralleled British manuals of the day by dwelling upon paci¬ 
fication’s more restrictive aspects, reminding its readers that “coun¬ 
terguerrilla operations must include appropriate action against the 
civilian and underground support of the guerrilla force without which 
it cannot operate.” The manual reviewed the usual list of control mea¬ 
sures—curfews, travel restrictions, and the like—describing several 
in more detail than had appeared in previous manuals. Throughout, 
FM 31-16 tried to balance the desirability of winning popular support 
with the less palatable requirements of military necessity. Following 
American tradition, the manual advised commanders to apply a judi¬ 
cious mixture of moderation and fairness on the one hand, and “vig¬ 
orous enforcement and stern punishment” on the other, warning that 
“half-heartedness or any other sign of laxness will breed contempt and 
defiance.” 4 ' 

Although Counterguerrilla Operations focused on the internal 
aspects of insurgency, it conceded that past experience had shown 
that insurrections rarely achieved their full potential without access 
to external sanctuaries and sustenance. Consequently, the manual 
included a short section on border control operations. The section was 
of necessity vague since actual measures would depend on the military, 


242 



The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


diplomatic, and topographical features of the conflict. Nevertheless, 
FM 31—16 prescribed a vigorous surveillance program involving 
observation posts, intelligence agents, electronic listening and sens¬ 
ing devices, and ground, air, and waterborne patrols. Crop destruction 
and defoliation measures were recommended for eliminating food and 
cover in guerrilla base areas. The manual also endorsed the creation of 
restricted zones, in which the Army would remove the entire population 
so as to create a no-man’s land along the border, and buffer zones, in 
which the military removed only the disloyal while permitting trusted 
individuals to stay on to create a hostile environment for guerrilla infil¬ 
trators. The manual recognized the significant human and materiel cost 
of such methods, and consequently it recommended that relocation and 
resettlement schemes be employed only when absolutely necessary and 
in close coordination with civil authorities. 46 

As civil, military, and police officials secured the country’s 
resources, regular military units would provide the necessary cover, 
keeping the enemy off-balance and away from populated areas through 
a continuous harassment campaign. Because guerrillas were usually 
difficult to locate, Counterguerrilla Operations stated that harassment 
campaigns could proceed for months before they had an appreciable 
effect in clearing the enemy out of a targeted area. The primary weapon 
in this campaign was the patrol. Ranging in size from a squad to a 
reinforced company, patrols would continuously scour their assigned 
areas, searching villages, establishing ambushes, and launching raids. 
Generally, these patrols would employ conventional small-unit tactics, 
though the manual did add a new technique, the area ambush, based 
on British counterguerrilla experience. Night marches, frequent reloca¬ 
tions of patrol bases, and movements by circuitous or unexpected routes 
were all advised to ensure security and secrecy. Aircraft would provide 
crucial assistance by conducting surveillance, ferrying troops and sup¬ 
plies, and supporting airmobile hunter-killer teams, an idea which had 
first appeared in the mid-1950s and was currently being employed in 
Vietnam. Indeed, noting the difficulty conventional forces normally 
experienced in trying to catch irregulars, FM 31-16 asserted that “the 
imaginative, extensive, and sustained use of the airmobile forces offers 
the most effective challenge available today to this mobility differential 
of the enemy guerrilla force. It is imperative that, whenever possible, 
the concept of counterguerrilla operations be based on the maximum 
employment of this type of force.” 47 

While decentralized, small-unit harassment operations backed 
by airmobile reaction forces constituted the bulk of the Army’s daily 
operational routine, Counterguerrilla Operations advised that offensive 


243 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


operations be undertaken whenever a sizable force or installation had 
been located. Although linear tactics might be appropriate if the enemy 
fielded large, conventional units and endeavored to hold ground, FM 
31-16 believed the most effective counterguerrilla tactic was encircle¬ 
ment. Because of the difficulties posed by terrain and the guerrillas’ 
proclivity for avoiding combat, the manual repeated earlier warnings 
that encirclements were difficult to execute. To be effective such 
operations had to be carefully planned, flawlessly executed, and backed 
by a considerably larger force than that of the enemy to prevent him 
from escaping the trap. As a guide, FM 31-16 prescribed three of the 
four Wehrmacht encirclement tactics initially introduced by the 1951 
Volckmann manual: “tightening the noose,” “fragmenting the disc,” 
and “hammer and anvil.” 48 

When conditions prohibited using encirclement, FM 31-16 offered 
five other methods for conducting offensive operations. Two of these— 
surprise attack and pursuit—had appeared in Volckmann’s manual. 
However, FM 31-16 slightly modified Volckmann’s pursuit opera¬ 
tion—which it subtitled a “sweep”—by adding airmobile encircling 
forces that would attempt to block the enemy as he fell back in front of 
the pursuing ground forces. The manual also provided additional infor¬ 
mation on a technique that had first appeared in FM 31-15 (1961), the 
urban cordon and sweep. As FM 31-16 explained it, political consider¬ 
ations were the primary feature that differentiated urban counterguer¬ 
rilla operations from their conventional counterparts. Included among 
the factors to be considered were the desirability of minimizing civilian 
casualties and property destruction, the utility of waging an aggressive 
propaganda campaign to mollify the population and entice the irregu¬ 
lars to surrender, and the necessity of quickly retaking lost urban areas 
to prevent the appearance of a guerrilla victory. 44 

Finally, the manual added two new maneuvers, both partly derived 
from British doctrine. The first, the “rabbit hunt,” was a cordon-and- 
sweep, encirclement tactic that the manual stated was “a very effec¬ 
tive technique for finding and destroying elements of a guerrilla force 
known or suspected to be in a relatively small area.” It involved nothing 
more than establishing blocking forces around three sides of a desig¬ 
nated area while a line of beaters advanced from the fourth, scouring 
the area and driving the guerrillas into ambush teams deployed around 
the perimeter. The second new technique, the fire flush, used troops to 
surround an area approximately 1,000 meters square that was then sub¬ 
jected to concentrated air and artillery fire—fire so severe that it would 
either destroy the enemy or drive him into the arms of the encircling 
troops. 50 


244 







The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


The appearance of the fire flush tactic in FM 31-16 marked a 
subtle but important development in Army counterguerrilla doctrine. 
Although the Army had occasionally employed similar tactics in 
Korea, historically artillery had played a minor role in the Army’s 
approach to counterguerrilla warfare. This had been true not only 
before World War II, but thereafter as well, as Army counterguer¬ 
rilla advisers repeatedly criticized America’s Chinese, Greek, Korean, 
Filipino, and Vietnamese allies for employing artillery as a substitute 
for mobile, aggressive infantry action. While recognizing the utility of 
artillery, tanks, and tactical airpower under certain conditions, Army 
doctrine writers had always doubted that heavy firepower could be 
applied effectively against guerrillas, whose elusive nature and pen¬ 
chant for deep swamps, thick forests, and rugged mountains were well 
known. Thus Army texts of the early 1960s had asserted that infantry 
battalions would rarely receive fire support beyond their own organic 
weapons and that when such support was provided, it would be limited 
to “a section or a platoon and will seldom require units of more than 
battery size.” To extend at least token support to dispersed patrols 
and outposts, Army doctrine writers had even overcome traditional 
prejudices against dispersing artillery and accepted the unorthodox 
Franco-Vietnamese practice of distributing artillery in one- and two- 
tube positions. 51 

Counter guerrilla Operations adhered to these themes. It pointed 
out the many impediments to effectively employing artillery and lim¬ 
ited the amount of artillery support a brigade could expect to a single 
battalion of 105-mm. howitzers. Yet the manual also talked about artil¬ 
lery in more positive terms than the past, a change that seems to have 
been based on British doctrine, from which the writers of FM 31-16 
lifted not only the fire flush technique, but also the idea of using artil¬ 
lery fire to harass and interdict the movement of enemy irregulars. 
From these beginnings, Army doctrine would move inextricably toward 
a more expansive view of firepower, perhaps as a result of the growing 
availability of helicopters to transport guns into remote areas, as well as 
the escalating conflict in Vietnam, where enemy firepower increasingly 
approximated that of government forces. Though never abandoning 
its faith in the bayonet, by 1965 Army texts were conceding that “it is 
often more economical in terms of manpower to maneuver the guerrilla 
force into a killing area by fire, rather than by hand-to-hand combat. It 
is easier to maneuver artillery fire across the battle areas than it is to 
maneuver personnel.”' 2 

A similar, though less dramatic shift in Army doctrine occurred 
vis-a-vis the role of armor in an insurgency, as doctrine writers began 


245 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


to assert more positive roles for armored and armored cavalry forma¬ 
tions. Interestingly, however, the movement to embrace heavier forms 
of weaponry did not extend to airpower. Perhaps based on the lessons 
of the Indochina War, FM 31-15 (1961) had questioned the utility of 
tactical aircraft on the basis of the guerrilla’s “tactics of clinging to his 
enemy or of mingling with the populace.” FM 31-16 (1963) retained 
this skepticism, noting that adverse terrain and weather, difficulties in 
air-ground coordination, and the guerrillas’ habit of operating dispersed 
and at night all reduced the effectiveness of airpower/ 3 

Regardless of the weapons and tactics employed, Counterguerrilla 
Operations pointed out that “counterguerrilla warfare is a contest of 
imagination, ingenuity, and improvisation by the opposing command¬ 
ers. Commanders must be ever alert to change or adapt their tactics, 
techniques, and procedures to meet the specific situation at hand. 
Once the routine operations of a counterguerrilla force becomes ste¬ 
reotyped, surprise (a major ingredient of success) has been lost.” The 
manual enjoined commanders to be continuously on the offensive and 
to focus their efforts on destroying the guerrillas rather than on captur¬ 
ing ground. It likewise understood that units would have to be tailored 
to the mission and environment, deleting unneeded and burdensome 
equipment, restructuring superfluous elements—like antitank units—to 
more useful functions, and adding other resources, such as man-porta¬ 
ble radios, helicopters, and additional intelligence, signal, fire control, 
civil affairs, and psychological warfare personnel.' 4 

Continuous, aggressive small-unit operations punctuated by larger 
offensive strikes as part of a wider, coordinated politico-military- 
police campaign were thus FM 31-16’s prescription for how the U.S. 
Army would defeat contemporary Communist insurgencies. If this 
sounded familiar, it was. Very little of it was new. In addition to fol¬ 
lowing the lead charted by the most recent doctrinal works, like the 
1960 ODCSOPS handbook and FM 31—15 (1961), Counterguerrilla 
Operations had relied heavily on the Army’s premier counterguerrilla 
work—FM 31-20 (1951). Not only had doctrine writers adopted many 
of FM 31-20’s principles, but they had lifted significant portions, 
sometimes virtually verbatim, from the original Volckmann manual. 
In the process, they not only preserved concepts initially introduced 
in 1951—like Wehrmacht encirclement tactics—but resurrected ideas 
that had long since fallen out of Army manuals, like Volckmann’s 
analytical division of an operational area into guerrilla-controlled. 
Army-controlled, and disputed zones. Even FM 31-16’s description 
of guerrilla warfare was drawn from the 1951 manual, a description 
that, while still serviceable, had been based on a study of World War 


246 






The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


II partisans, not Vietnamese irregulars. Thus three years after the inau¬ 
guration of the great counterinsurgency drive, the Army’s response to 
the threat posed by Maoist third world insurgencies remained firmly 
rooted in the past. 

Counterguerrilla Operations may well have represented a repack¬ 
aging of old wine in a new bottle, but it was good wine, one that 
embodied principles that had generally stood the test of time. 
Nevertheless, the Army recognized the need to supplement and refine 
it. Two important examples of this emerged at the end of 1963. The 
first, the “Counterinsurgency Planning Guide,” was issued by the 
Special Warfare School in October 1963 as a guidebook for soldiers 
charged with planning and implementing counterinsurgency cam¬ 
paigns. The booklet was filled with practical tips, worksheets, and 
checklists to help the practitioner apply current doctrinal concepts. 
It was also a virtual primer on social engineering, blending modern 
developmental theory with a host of suggestions on what U.S. soldiers 
could do to bring prosperity and democracy to foreign lands. Finally, 
the booklet introduced some modest refinements to doctrine, dividing 
the pacification committees into two entities—civil-military advisory 
committees that served as liaison bodies between the military and the 
civilian community, and security coordination centers, which focused 
more narrowly on the integration of military, police, and intelligence 
matters. It also assigned a new label, clear and hold, to the area control 
concept espoused by FM 31-16. 55 

The last doctrinal product of 1963 was FM 31-22, US. Army 
Counterinsurgency Forces , published by the Special Warfare Agency 
in November. While FM 31-16 (1963) had outlined what U.S. forces 
would do when directly engaged in counterguerrilla warfare, FM 31-22 
focused on the earlier stages of an insurgency, when American partici¬ 
pation would be limited to providing advice and support. Consequently, 
while the manual reiterated the broad tenets of national and Army 
counterinsurgency doctrine, it was dedicated more narrowly to what the 
Army in 1961 had termed counterinsurgency forces. Counterinsurgency 
forces were those elements of the Army specifically designated to help 
third world countries combat Communist subversion, primarily by pro¬ 
viding advice and support, rather than direct action. FM 31-22 (1963) 
divided such forces into three tiers according to the order in which they 
were to be committed. Military assistance advisory group (MAAG) 
personnel and mobile advisory teams drawn mainly from SAFs made 
up the first tier. SAF backup brigades composed the second, while 
any other individual, combat support, or combat service support units 
drawn from the Army at large made up the third tier. 


247 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


FM 31-22 (1963) examined in depth the organization and function 
of the Special Action Forces and the SAF backup brigades. Because of 
its advisory focus, FM 31-22 also discussed the organization, opera¬ 
tion, and training of indigenous paramilitary forces in greater detail 
than had heretofore appeared in official manuals. The manual noted 
that people who joined paramilitary forces did so at great risk to them¬ 
selves and their families and that consequently the government had 
a moral obligation to reward and protect them. The manual also sug¬ 
gested establishing village radio systems that could be used for both 
security and administrative purposes.' 6 

FM 31-22 (1963) assigned two major functions to indigenous 
paramilitaries. First, paramilitaries protected villages—a function that 
yielded immense political, morale, and intelligence benefits. Second, 
and equally important, paramilitary forces performed static security 
missions “in order that the national army may be relieved of these tasks 
to concentrate on offensive operations.” This view not only reflected 
the advice the Army had given insurgency-torn countries since 1945, 
but mirrored British doctrine as well, which asserted that “the primary 
role of the army is to seek out and destroy CT [Communist terrorists] 
in the jungle and on its fringes. . . . The secondary role of the Army 
is that of supporting the . . . police in the populated areas by helping 
to enforce food denial measures, curfews, etc.” American doctrine 
writers in the 1960s thoroughly agreed with this approach. Although 
FM 31-16 acknowledged that military units would have to perform 
police and population- and resources-control functions to one degree 
or another, American texts repeatedly assigned primary responsibility 
for such missions to indigenous forces in general and to police and 
paramilitary formations in particular. Such a division of labor made 
the best use of the indigenous forces’ local knowledge and linguis¬ 
tic skills; minimized the involvement of foreign troops in politically 
sensitive, population-oriented operations; and freed the more heavily 
armed regulars for the mission for which they were best suited—offen¬ 
sive combat. 57 

Throughout its pages, FM 31-22 dispensed additional observa¬ 
tions with regard to implementing Army counterinsurgency doctrine. 
It recommended maintaining high stock levels at all bases so that 
sudden increases in supply activities at a particular base would not 
tip off the enemy about upcoming operations. It cautioned that the 
intermingling of guerrillas and civilians would restrict the application 
of firepower, except in declared “free zones” where artillery could be 
employed “indiscriminately.” It warned, however, that “the amount of 
such fire must be well controlled to prevent wasting ammunition.” 58 


248 




The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


FM 31-22 also repeated injunctions to the effect that counterinsur¬ 
gency was a “war for men’s minds” in which every soldier was a 
‘grass roots ambassador.” Still, while socioeconomic action programs 
were vital to winning public support, the manual advised commanders 
not to allow civic action programs to interfere with their units’ pri¬ 
mary mission of engaging the enemy in combat. Finally, based on the 
Army’s many advisory experiences over the past decade, FM 31-22 
(1963) reviewed some of the problems that typically impeded advisory 
missions, offering several pages of suggestions on how advisers might 
overcome these difficulties before concluding with a series of appen¬ 
dixes outlining paramilitary training, village defense, civic action, and 
resettlement programs. 54 

FM 31-22 was the last counterinsurgency manual published during 
President Kennedy’s three-year administration. Ten days after its publi¬ 
cation, Kennedy fell victim to an assassin’s bullet. During the first year 
of his successor’s administration, the Army published only one major 
counterinsurgency work—FM 100-20, Field Service Regulations, 
Counterinsurgency. Prepared by the Army’s Institute for Advanced 
Studies, FM 100-20 was intended to be the highest-level statement of 
counterinsurgency doctrine in the family of Army manuals. The manual 
described the current world situation in Rostowian terms, explaining 
how communism endeavored to exploit the revolution of rising expec¬ 
tations for its own ends. It related U.S. national policy as found in the 
OIDP and summarized the part each U.S. government agency was to 
play in implementing this program before focusing on the Army’s par¬ 
ticular role during each stage of a Maoist-style insurgency. In the pro¬ 
cess, it reiterated the fact that U.S. national policy generally restricted 
American overseas involvements to providing advice and assistance to 
avoid exposing the United States “unnecessarily to charges of inter¬ 
vention and colonialism.” The manual concluded by reviewing some 
operational and planning factors for counterinsurgency actions.' 1 " 

Much of the information contained in FM 100-20 had already 
appeared in earlier texts. Nevertheless, the publication of FM 100-20 
in April 1964 marked an important milestone in the development 
of Army counterinsurgency literature, as the Army now had a fairly 
complete family of counterinsurgency manuals. FM 100-20 (1964) 
put the Army’s role in counterinsurgency in a national context and 
provided information useful for high-level planners. FM 31-22 (1963) 
explained the role of Army forces in more depth, particularly during 
the preliminary stages of an insurrection when the Army’s role would 
be confined to providing advisers, while FM 31-15 (1961) described 
what the Army would do once the United States directly intervened in 


249 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

an irregular conflict. Finally, FM 31-16 (1963) described in even more 
detail how infantry brigades and battalions would go about the business 
of fighting guerrillas. 

The Development of Doctrine, 1964-1965 

The publication of the Army’s capstone counterinsurgency manual 
three years into the national counterinsurgency campaign reflected 
some underlying problems in the Army’s doctrinal effort. Ideally, the 
Army would have preferred to publish its highest-level manual first, 
followed by an orderly progression of derivative manuals, each describ¬ 
ing in greater detail exactly how the concepts contained in the preced¬ 
ing manuals were to be implemented. In practice, the Army had not 
been able to adhere to this scheme. Definitive national-level doctrine, 
in the form of the OIDP, had not been available until the fall of 1962, 
and, although the Army had immediately drafted a manual incorporat¬ 
ing that policy, cumbersome internal review procedures and the need 
to coordinate the manuscript with outside agencies had delayed the 
publication of FM 100-20 until after Kennedy’s death. Consequently, 
the Army ended up publishing lower-level operational doctrine, like 
FM 31-16, before higher-level manuals, like FM 100-20. Since the 
service’s fundamental philosophy with regard to counterinsurgency 
did not alter during this period, the ill effects of the delay were per¬ 
haps minimal. On the other hand, the language of counterinsurgency 
was changing so rapidly during the 1960s due to intense military and 
public interest in the subject that manuals published at different times 
employed different, and somewhat conflicting, terms. The confusion 
was exacerbated by the Army’s decision, taken in deference to the 
importance assigned to counterinsurgency, to incorporate new ideas 
into existing doctrine as soon as they were available rather than waiting 
for the development of a complete doctrinal base. 61 

Meanwhile, the inclusion of counterinsurgency in branch-level, 
how-to-do-it manuals had proceeded unevenly for a variety of reasons. 
To begin with, few doctrine writers had the type of knowledge needed 
to write detailed implementing-level doctrine for counterinsurgency. 
Army efforts to rectify this situation were only marginally effective 
until America’s growing involvement in Vietnam eventually generated a 
surplus of such individuals. The fact that the branches introduced coun¬ 
terinsurgency material into their manuals at different times, depending 
on when particular manuals were due for review, added to the doctrinal 
unevenness. Turf battles between agencies over proponency for certain 
aspects of doctrine, as well as philosophical differences as to the degree 


250 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


to which counterinsurgency needed to be integrated into functional 
manuals, further complicated matters. A few branches—including 
Special Forces—argued that standard branch techniques were entirely 
adequate to meet counterinsurgency needs and hence there was no need 
to develop special tactics for counterguerrilla operations. Some doc¬ 
trinal writers also objected to including counterguerrilla information 
in lower-level manuals on the grounds that higher-level manuals had 
already covered the subject adequately, citing regulations that discour¬ 
aged redundancy. In fact, the Army’s counterinsurgency literature was 
exceedingly redundant despite these regulations. This was not entirely 
bad, given the president’s desire that the Army rapidly immerse itself 
in what was for many an unfamiliar subject. The redundancy, however, 
muddied doctrinal clarity and added to the confusion as to exactly what 
each manual was supposed to achieve. 62 

Army Chief of Staff General Johnson was particularly dissatisfied 
with the state of counterinsurgency doctrine and training in the Army. 
He felt that while the Army had made significant progress on the 
counterinsurgency front over the past few years, it had still not fully 
come to grips with the issue. He was disturbed by uneven treatment of 
the subject in Army manuals and wanted the technical and operational 
aspects of waging a counterinsurgency campaign developed in more 
detail. Johnson also thought that civil affairs doctrine had not yet made 
the adjustment from conventional occupation duty to the more varied 
demands of the contemporary world. Finally, he suspected that a belief 
existed “in many parts of the government and within the army as well 
that counterinsurgency and Special Forces are synonymous.” Until this 
notion was put to rest once and for all, Johnson believed he would not 
be successful at integrating counterinsurgency into the mainstream of 
the Army. 63 

To correct these deficiencies, General Johnson launched two major 
initiatives in the latter half of 1964. The first focused on convincing 
the Army that counterinsurgency was not just for advisers and Special 
Forces personnel anymore, but a mission affecting the whole Army. To 
help sell this notion, Johnson coined a new term, stability operations , 
that broadly encompassed the entire range of activities that the Army 
might perform in support of national policy in the third world—con¬ 
stabulary operations, situations short of war, counterinsurgency, and 
nation building. From his perspective, the common denominator to 
all of these missions was that they required that the Army establish a 
level of stability and security sufficient to allow political, social, and 
economic measures—the true instruments of change—to work. Some 
observers criticized the term, saying it implied a status quo policy, but 


251 







Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Johnson denied such an inference, arguing that stability operations was 
far preferable to the other terms of the day— counterinsurgency , which 
he believed had negative connotations, and special warfare , which he 
felt implied that such operations were not a normal military function. 
After declaring in the fall of 1964 that stability operations represented 
the “third principal mission” of the Army, coequal with general and 
limited warfare, Johnson waged an aggressive campaign to make sure 
that everyone in the Army understood the new paradigm and took it 
seriously. 64 

Meanwhile, General Johnson launched the second prong of his 
offensive by ordering Combat Developments Command to review the 
entire counterinsurgency doctrinal program. The command responded 
to Johnson’s request in August 1964 with a “Program for Analysis and 
Development of U.S. Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Organization.” 
The program proposed a two-track approach. On the one hand, CDC 
would quickly redress some of Johnson’s most urgent concerns. 
Meanwhile, it would proceed in a more systematic fashion to examine, 
refine, and revise the entire corpus of counterinsurgency literature. 65 

The fast track part of the CDC program required that the special 
warfare community publish a new handbook for advisory personnel 
and revise existing psyops and Special Forces manuals by the end 
of 1965. Although the psyops manual did not reach print until early 
1966, Combat Developments Command did publish new versions of 
FM 31-21, Special Forces Operations , and FM 31-20, Special Forces 
Operational Techniques , in 1965. These manuals explained the tech¬ 
niques Special Forces personnel were to use in combating insurgencies 
and reflected to a large degree current practices in Southeast Asia. 
Of more importance to the Army as a whole, however, was the new 
advisory text, FM 31—73, Advisor Handbook for Counterinsurgency , 
released in April 1965. 

FM 31-73 was the first manual published by the Army devoted 
exclusively to advisory issues. Although intended for general use, it 
was clearly written with an eye to Vietnam, where the United States 
already had over 30,000 military personnel. In addition to discussing 
advisory duty in general, the manual offered detailed coverage of the 
conduct of a counterinsurgency campaign in a way that was useful 
for advisers and operators alike. FM 31-73 endorsed civic action but 
cautioned from experience that “rural traditions are resistant to change 
and often will work against the project.” It discussed the practical 
aspects of building defended hamlets, relocating populations, and con¬ 
ducting clear-and-hold operations, noting that such operations might 
take several years to succeed. The handbook also warned advisers that 


252 



The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


they would likely find that indigenous forces treated captured guer¬ 
rillas much more harshly than would be tolerated in the U.S. Army. 
It instructed advisers to avoid becoming involved in atrocities and to 
encourage their counterparts to abide by the 1949 Geneva Convention. 
Finally, the manual reminded readers that they should apply “the 
minimum destruction concept in view of the overriding requirements 
to minimize alienating the population. (Bringing artillery or air power 
to bear on a village from which sniper fire was received may neutralize 
guerrilla action but will alienate the civilian population as a result of 
casualties among noncombatants.)” 66 

While Combat Developments Command proceeded to meet General 
Johnsons most urgent concerns, it initiated concurrently its broader 
doctrinal review. This effort called for the accomplishment of twenty- 
four tasks in an orderly, multiphased process of data collection, analy¬ 
sis, and publication. The desired result was a new family of manuals 
that covered the entire range of counterinsurgency issues, from national 
policy to the most technical procedure, with minimum redundancy in 
a clear, coherent, and linguistically consistent fashion. The command 
also planned to use the revision process to reinforce Johnson’s cam¬ 
paign to integrate stability operations into the Army and to reorient the 
officer corps “from the purely military aspects of warfare to a recogni¬ 
tion that every military move must be weighed with regard to both its 
political effects and military effects.” 67 

General Johnson insisted that the conceptual aspects of the pro¬ 
gram be completed by November 1965, although he recognized that 
integrating the results of this review into Army literature would take 
much longer. Of the twenty-four tasks, perhaps the most important was 
task five, a study prepared by the CDC’s Special Warfare and Civil 
Affairs Group in July 1965 titled “Concepts and General Doctrine for 
Counterinsurgency.” Combat Developments Command intended this 
study to be the conceptual mainspring for the development of all future 
doctrine. What was most notable about the study, however, was how 
little it differed from existing doctrine. Although the report acknowl¬ 
edged problems in application, it fully embraced the social engineer’s 
creed, stating that America’s job was to change “the basic attitudes and 
value scales of the people to conform to that needed by the new nation 
that is being built to replace the former structure.” Such measures were 
to go forward despite the fact that a majority of the population might 
object to the American-inspired changes. 6 " 

The study also did not challenge the U.S. government’s basic strat¬ 
egy of relating American actions to the three phases of Maoist revolu¬ 
tionary warfare. Nation building still took precedence when insurgency 


253 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


was in a latent or incipient stage (phase one). Once guerrilla warfare 
had emerged (phase two), these efforts would share center stage with 
police, intelligence, and population- and resources-control programs. 
Military activities throughout these two phases remained of secondary 
importance in the minds of Army doctrine writers, who insisted on 
limiting the armed forces to performing clear-and-hold-type opera¬ 
tions. But the study’s tone changed dramatically when it came to con¬ 
sidering appropriate policies for a full-blown, phase three war. In the 
opinion of the Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group, “in a phase 
three insurgency, the survival of the government is predicated upon its 
ability to successfully undertake combat operations. . . . The govern¬ 
ment must concentrate its resources to completely defeat the guerrilla 
forces.” Under these circumstances, nation-building and reform efforts, 
though never completely halted, were to take a backseat to more violent 
measures. 69 

The study’s view of phase three warfare, while consistent with ear¬ 
lier Army writings, represented one of the strongest assertions to date 
that military considerations should take priority over political ones once 
major warfare had broken out. It was not an opinion universally held, 
as some soldiers believed that political and economic reforms should 
never be subordinated to military action. It was, nevertheless, consis¬ 
tent with past experience, where time after time counterinsurgents had 
found that political and economic programs could not advance without 
adequate security. 

While the CDC study asserted the importance of military action 
during a full-scale war, it was less confident as to what that action 
should be. In the authors’ opinion, the Army faced a difficult situation 
once an insurgency had reached its final stage. 

If the guerrilla forces organize for conventional military operations, the prob¬ 
lem for the government forces is resolved to that of defeating the insurgents, 
using standard military operations. ... On the other hand, if the guerrillas 
remain dispersed to avoid battle but concentrate sufficiently to cause severe 
government attrition, the government faces a dilemma. Concentration of gov¬ 
ernment forces permits the spread of insurgent control to those areas where 
government strength has been reduced. Conversely, failure to concentrate 
invites piecemeal destruction . 70 

The Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group did not have a pat 
solution for such an eventuality. The group recommended that the 
government first secure those areas of the country that it needed for its 
own survival, such as major population centers and regions containing 
important resources, while applying vigorous population, resources, 


254 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


and border controls to deny the enemy sustenance. Meanwhile, the mil¬ 
itary would maintain pressure on the insurgents by inflicting casualties 
and destroying their supplies and equipment. “The resulting insurgent 
attrition combined with the requirement for the guerrillas to react to 
government operations contributes to the loss of insurgent operational 
initiative. . . . Where the government has gained the initiative, com¬ 
bat operations to destroy guerrilla units and to harass their safe areas 
should be extended.” 71 Large units, employing massed artillery fires 
when appropriate, would conduct major operations, striking at guerrilla 
bases and gradually extending the government’s zone of control, while 
small units kept up a constant pressure around populated areas through 
patrols and raids. Such was the advice of CDC’s counterinsurgency 
experts for combating a phase three insurgency. 

The Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group’s three-phase approach 
to insurgency betrayed several weaknesses. From the beginning, nation¬ 
al policy and Army doctrine alike had tended to treat the differences 
between the phases in a Maoist revolutionary war as ones of scale and 
intensity, not method. Consequently, the United States had adopted the 
view that the only response to an escalating insurgency was to do more 
of the same—more reforms, more police controls, more combat opera¬ 
tions—seemingly oblivious to the implication that if such measures 
had failed to arrest an insurgency in its earlier stages, they would be 
unlikely to do so after it had escalated to mobile warfare. Army doctrine 
also reflected national policy in depicting the enemy primarily in terms 
of small guerrilla bands. Its proposed countermeasures—decentralized 
area operations conducted by battalions and brigades operating on an 
independent or semi-independent basis—seemed to presuppose such 
a scenario. Army manuals never discussed division-level operations 
in an insurgency environment, adhering stubbornly to the independent 
brigade-battalion-company model. Some soldiers dismissed the whole 
question with an intellectual slight of hand, maintaining that any con¬ 
flict in which the United States committed troops in division strength 
was, by definition, outside the bounds of counterinsurgency doctrine. 
Nonetheless, when forced to confront the question as to what was to be 
done once an enemy fielded large, conventional-type units, the Army’s 
general response had been that conventional offensive and defensive 
tactics would suffice. In fact, as late as January 1965, CDC’s Special 
Warfare Agency had asserted that “major combined arms operations per 
se are not visualized for counterinsurgency,” and, in the unlikely event 
that they were required, “the doctrine will be essentially that of general 
war or limited war.” Although a few soldiers warned that such assump¬ 
tions were inaccurate, the Army gave little thought to the possibility that 


255 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the enemy’s large conventional formations might be able to continue to 
operate on a semiguerrilla basis, coalescing to strike, then dispersing to 
avoid retaliation, all the while maintaining the relatively fluid aspects 
characteristic of lower-level insurgencies. 72 

The Army’s failure to consider the problems associated with con¬ 
ventional warfare in phase three represented one of the most significant 
flaws in its counterinsurgency doctrine. The CDC’s failure to rectify the 
omission was not, however, the only area where the doctrinal review 
effort came up short. For example, the CDC’s effort to identify tech¬ 
niques that would help the Army motivate indigenous populations to 
support a counterinsurgency campaign hit a snag when the organiza¬ 
tion tasked with preparing the study, the Special Operations Research 
Office, conceded that social science was still an “infant science” that 
had not yet progressed to the stage where it could provide the type 
of concrete solutions so desperately needed by doctrine writers. This 
admission should not have come as a surprise. As early as 1962, the 
academician Lucian W. Pye had warned that “the disturbing truth” was 
that the social science community had yet to develop a practical “doc¬ 
trine about how to go about nation building.” 73 That such a doctrine still 
did not exist three years later illustrated the difficulties doctrine writers 
would have in trying to produce more definitive guidance pertaining to 
counterinsurgency’s complex social aspects. 

General Johnson did not receive any better news from Deputy 
Chief of Staff for Military Operations General Palmer, who at Johnson’s 
request prepared a paper on the nature of conflict in the “lower spectrum 
of war” in early 1965. After examining thirty-seven past insurgencies, 
Palmer concluded that Army doctrine was sound in its broad outlines 
but that any attempt to produce a definitive counterinsurgency doctrine 
would be like looking for a “Will-O-The-Wisp,” since every insurgency 
was a unique event, the product of distinct political, social, topographi¬ 
cal, and military factors. “This particularization,” Palmer concluded, 
“calls into serious question the validity of current U.S. Army attempts 
to devise a universal doctrine for counterinsurgency comparable to our 
conventional war doctrine.” 74 

Palmer’s words of caution notwithstanding, Johnson still pressed 
ahead with the quest for a more perfect doctrine, even if it had to be 
acknowledged that no doctrine could ever fully address counterinsur¬ 
gent warfare. By the end of 1965 Combat Developments Command 
had accomplished some important preliminary work toward revising 
the Army’s counterinsurgency literature. Yet much remained to be done, 
and the revision program would take several more years before it was 
fully in place. 


256 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


Disseminating Doctrine: The Education System 

All of the Army’s efforts at writing and revising doctrine would go 
for naught unless that doctrine was inculcated into the Army at large. 
This was no small task. Introducing new ideas is always time consum¬ 
ing. Counterinsurgency’s heavy emphasis on political affairs posed spe¬ 
cial difficulties for an institution that, while it had long performed civil 
functions, had never felt comfortable doing so. The fact that soldiers 
had to master counterinsurgency while still maintaining proficiency in 
nuclear and conventional warfare added to the complexity of the task. 
Kennedy’s determination that soldiers absorb the new style of war¬ 
fare as quickly as possible, and the Army’s reluctance to increase the 
amount of time its already busy soldiers spent in classrooms, merely 
exacerbated the problem. 75 

Because national policy placed the primary burden for countering 
third world revolutions on indigenous armies and their U.S. advisers, 
the military initially concentrated its educational initiatives on these 
two groups. The Army’s first educational effort—the counterguerrilla 
operations and tactics course that opened at Fort Bragg in January 
1961—was just such a course, as a significant portion of its student 
body consisted of foreign officers and Americans slated for overseas 
advisory duty. This class, which the Special Warfare School eventually 
expanded from six to ten weeks and renamed the counterinsurgency 
operations course, offered the most comprehensive treatment of coun¬ 
terinsurgency in the military education system. It covered everything 
from national policy to tactics and techniques. The course’s central 
theme was that an insurgency could not be defeated unless significant 
progress was made in raising living standards, improving production, 
and achieving social and political equality. By 1962 the Army had 
established similar courses in Okinawa, Germany, and the Panama 
Canal Zone. Like the parent course at Fort Bragg, these courses pri¬ 
marily taught foreign officers, although the commander of U.S. Army, 
Europe, cycled enough men through the school in Germany to post 
at least one graduate in each brigade and battalion headquarters in 
Europe. 7 " 

Meanwhile, the Army introduced a number of other advisory- 
oriented initiatives. The service assisted the Pentagon’s Military 
Assistance Institute in integrating counterinsurgency into its advisory 
training program and sent some of the Army’s most senior adviser- 
designates to the Department of State’s counterinsurgency-oriented 
National Interdepartmental Seminar. General Decker also initiated 
a Senior Officer Orientation Tour program, in which selected senior 


257 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Classroom instruction as part of the military assistance 
training adviser course 


officers spent up to six weeks in a troubled third world country to 
experience insurgency-related problems. Over two hundred senior 
officers participated in this program during its two-year existence. 
Last but not least, the Army developed a number of adviser-prepara¬ 
tion courses. The most notable of these was the military assistance 
training adviser (MATA) course at Fort Bragg, established in early 
1962. The four-week (later six-week) course was oriented exclusively 
to preparing advisers for the burgeoning conflict in Vietnam. Only 
a portion of all personnel going to Vietnam took the course, which 
experienced some growing pains. Nevertheless, the Special Warfare 
School continuously adjusted and improved the class based on feed¬ 
back from Vietnam. The course reviewed doctrine, related Vietnam- 
specific tactics, and provided an orientation to Vietnamese language 
and culture. 77 

Based on the premise that a purely military solution was not pos¬ 
sible in Vietnam, the original MATA course devoted roughly 25 percent 
of its time to civic action. In 1963 the Civil Affairs School reinforced 
this effort by initiating a six-week civic action course that taught 
nation-building theory to civil affairs personnel slated for duty over¬ 
seas. Other schools eventually added adviser-oriented courses as well, 
so that by the end of 1965 perhaps 7,000 officers had graduated from 
the Army’s most intensive counterinsurgency-related courses. While 
this number represented just a small fraction of the officer corps, it 


258 






The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


was an important one, as these individuals composed the front line of 
Americas overseas counterinsurgency effort. 7 * 

The Army did not, however, limit its educational efforts to future 
advisers. From the beginning of the national counterinsurgency cam¬ 
paign, the Army committed itself to the goal of indoctrinating the 
entire officer corps in counterinsurgency. At the president’s urging, the 
Pentagon established counterinsurgency libraries at many installations 
and published bibliographies and reading lists containing hundreds 
of counterinsurgency-related titles. 79 The Army’s professional jour¬ 
nals helped spread the counterinsurgency gospel as well, publishing 
hundreds of articles between 1961 and 1965. Some of these articles 
presented distillations of the latest doctrine, while others offered cri¬ 
tiques, reviewed historical examples, or related tactics and techniques. 
A significant percentage of these articles emphasized the importance 
of good troop behavior and civic actions in the battle for the hearts and 
minds of the afflicted population.* 0 The Army also integrated counter¬ 
insurgency studies into a number of short familiarization and refresher 
courses, the most notable of which was the senior officer counterinsur¬ 
gency and special warfare course at Fort Bragg, a one-week intensive 
course that by 1964 was graduating about 450 colonels and generals a 
year.* 1 

Meanwhile, in early 1961 Continental Army Command ordered 
that counterinsurgency be introduced into every level of officer edu¬ 
cation. Initially, it left the question of how much time schools should 
devote to counterinsurgency up to the individual school commandants. 
One consequence of this approach was that coverage varied widely 
from school to school in 1961, ranging from twelve hours given to 
Infantry officers to a mere two hours presented to Special Forces 
officers. 82 In September Continental Army Command attempted to 
impose some uniformity by mandating minimum hours of instruction 
for each level of schooling in the Army. However, rather than creat¬ 
ing an entirely new block of instruction separate from the rest of a 
school’s curriculum, CONARC directed that most counterinsurgency 
instruction be integrated into existing courses. To help meet these new 
requirements, the Special Warfare School drafted a series of common 
subject courses that service schools were to use as the basis of their 
instruction. These courses focused heavily on the political, social, and 
psychological aspects of counterinsurgency theory. For example, the 
three-hour common course for newly commissioned second lieutenants 
devoted no more than ninety seconds to tactics, while the twelve-hour 
branch career course contained just four hours on military tactics and 
techniques, still only a third of the total program. Using these lectures 


259 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


as a starting point, the schools were then free to add additional hours of 
instruction tailored more directly to their particular missions, a method 
that still allowed a great deal of flexibility. By January 1962 the aver¬ 
age branch orientation course (given to all newly commissioned second 
lieutenants) devoted 6.2 hours to “pure” counterinsurgency and 73.4 
hours to “related” subjects, while career courses (for first lieutenants 
and captains) contained, on average, 35 pure and 182 related hours.’” 

The significance of these statistics is difficult to judge, as school 
officials, eager to demonstrate their responsiveness to the president, 
used somewhat questionable criteria as to what constituted counter¬ 
insurgency and counterinsurgency-related course hours. The absence 
of any formal definition of these terms, together with CONARC’s 
preference that most counterinsurgency instruction be integrated into 
preexisting courses, lent further confusion. Skeptics rightly scoffed 
at the Infantry School’s claim that by January 1962 the school was 
devoting over 400 hours to counterinsurgency-related subjects. On 
the other hand, there was a certain legitimacy to the view that many 
conventional subjects were relevant to performing counterinsurgency 
missions, especially if instructors integrated appropriate counterin¬ 
surgency observations into their standard lectures. For example, the 
Commandant of Cadets at West Point in 1962, Brig. Gen. Richard G. 
Stilwell, claimed that an English course titled “Evolution of American 
Ideals as Reflected in American Literature from 1607 to the Present” 
was counterinsurgency-related because it helped “the cadet in real¬ 
izing and understanding the American way of life. Such background 
training is considered valuable in working with peoples of underdevel¬ 
oped nations.” He similarly argued that the activities of the judo and 
debate clubs bore “some relationship” to counterinsurgency. While his 
reasoning was not without merit, statements such as these illustrate 
the difficulty one experiences in trying to quantify counterinsurgency 
education in the Army.* 4 

What is incontrovertible is that Army leaders were dissatisfied with 
the way the schools were handling counterinsurgency, as evidenced 
by a number of internal reports generated in 1961 and 1962. Nor was 
President Kennedy satisfied, and in March 1962 he directed that all 
government agencies involved in counterinsurgency, including the 
Departments of State and Defense, USIA, AID, and the CIA, establish 
counterinsurgency education programs. According to National Security 
Action Memorandum 131, all civil and military officers in the afore¬ 
mentioned agencies were to receive a basic orientation in the history 
and nature of insurgency, to include Communist tactics and America’s 
counterstrategy. In addition, junior- and mid-grade officers were to 


260 


The Counterinsurgent Ferment, 1961-1965 


study counterinsurgency tactics and techniques applicable to their 
branches and departments, while staff-level officers received instruc¬ 
tion in planning and conducting counterinsurgency campaigns. Finally, 
the memorandum required that all mid- and senior-grade officers slated 
for overseas service in developing countries receive both general coun¬ 
terinsurgency instruction as well as more specific information about 
the country to which they were about to be posted. 85 

Spurred by this directive, Continental Army Command redoubled 
its efforts to improve the quantity and quality of instruction given in its 
schools, directing that all officer orientation and career courses contain 
between twenty and twenty-seven hours of pure counterinsurgency 
instruction. This was rapidly achieved, and between 1963 and 1965 the 
average branch officer career course included about twenty-eight hours 
of pure counterinsurgency instruction, of which about eight hours were 
devoted to theory and twenty to branch-oriented tactics and techniques. 
All schools also continued to report many additional hours of counter¬ 
insurgency-related instruction. 86 

Exposure to counterinsurgency began at the very beginning of 
officer education, in ROTC and at the United States Military Academy 
at West Point, New York. Counterinsurgency proved quite popular on 
college campuses, where students, inspired by Kennedy’s somewhat 
romantic portrayal of guerrilla warfare, began forming volunteer coun¬ 
terguerrilla units. CONARC quickly tapped into the fad, and by 1965 
nearly half of all college ROTC programs sported counterguerrilla units 
that practiced patrol, survival, and fieldcraft skills. In the meantime, the 
command ensured that all ROTC students were exposed to the idea that 
“subversive insurgency is a battle for the hearts and minds of men” in 
a six-hour required course. 87 

Cadets at the Military Academy received an even heavier dose of 
counterinsurgency theory. The works of Communist theoreticians Mao 
Tse-tung, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Truong Chinh were required reading at 
the academy beginning in 1962, as were histories of past revolutionary 
struggles in Malaya, Indochina, and the Philippines. Also mandatory 
for cadets were lectures on the current war in Vietnam. By 1963 West 
Point’s curriculum included sixty-six mandatory lessons in counterin¬ 
surgency plus twenty-six hours of Ranger-style counterguerrilla train¬ 
ing in summer camp. Seniors were also required to write a paper cho¬ 
sen from a list of twenty-nine topics developed by the academy, eight 
of which (28 percent) were counterinsurgency related. The academy 
further identified another 136 required lessons and 45 hours of field 
training as being counterinsurgency related, while the school offered 
an additional 226 counterinsurgency lessons in such elective courses 


261 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


as “National Security Problems,” “Military History of Insurgency and 
Counterinsurgency,” and “Revolutionary Warfare ” NS 

Upon commissioning, the Army sent its young second lieutenants 
to branch schools for roughly nine weeks of orientation training in their 
new duties. They then went to operational assignments, only to return 
a few years later as first lieutenants and captains to receive six to nine 
months of branch career instruction. While the amount of counterin¬ 
surgency instruction offered in Army branch schools varied widely, 
one school that played a pivotal role in disseminating doctrine was 
the Infantry School, both because of the large number of officers who 
passed through its doors each year and because of the central role the 
Army assigned to Infantry units in counterguerrilla doctrine. 

Like all of its sister institutions, the Infantry School found the 
task of integrating a complex subject like counterinsurgency into an 
already cramped curriculum to be no easy matter. School instructor 
Maj. Harold D. Yow explained the school’s dilemma and the rationale 
behind its ultimate solution. 

We cannot give a complete course in geography, political science, applied 
psychology, comparative religions, ethnology, aesthetics, economics, and the 
tactics and techniques of counterguerrilla operations—it just cannot be done. 
Yet knowledge in all of these areas is vital to success in counterinsurgency 
operations and as you know we have a multitude of prophets about us, each 
setting forth, what in his own best judgment, is the one facet of these opera¬ 
tions to be most emphasized. In all probability they are all right to a degree, 
for above all else, counterinsurgency operations must have a “total” approach, 
prepared to attack every deficiency which can present obstacles in a country to 
the rapid development of human capabilities, with a concomitant development 
of an environment of individual freedom necessary for their exercise. . . . We 
realize that the infantryman must have an acute awareness of the totality of the 
successful counterinsurgency formula. He must be aware of the importance of 
psychological operations, economics, politics, etc.—in fact, at the individual 
level he must become directly involved in many of these activities within his 
own means—in the program of activities which are called “military civic 
actions.” But, first, last, and foremost, the business of the infantry officer in 
counterinsurgency operations is most properly the beating of the overt armed 
guerrilla force, whether by an American unit he is leading, or by an indigenous 
unit he is advising / 4 

Guided by this philosophy, the Infantry School proceeded to inte¬ 
grate counterinsurgency instruction into its curriculum. At the start 
of the Kennedy administration the orientation course for newly com¬ 
missioned infantry lieutenants included a mere two hours of counter¬ 
insurgency instruction, while the longer branch career course offered 


262 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


twelve hours. This was clearly insufficient. In fact, only 32 percent 
of the students expressed satisfaction with the school’s treatment of 
counterguerrilla warfare, while only 25 percent believed they had 
sufficient knowledge to train a unit effectively for antiguerrilla opera¬ 
tions. From these meager beginnings the school’s coverage of counter¬ 
insurgency matters expanded rapidly, so that by 1965 the orientation 
course included 29 hours of pure and 195 hours of integrated counter¬ 
insurgency instruction. The career course was even more impressive, 
devoting about sixty-seven hours to pure counterinsurgency instruc¬ 
tion by 1965. 90 

Throughout the 1960s, Infantry School curricular materials stressed 
the idea that soldiers who blindly adhered to conventional methods, 
without taking into account a conflict’s unique political, military, and 
topographical facets, were bound to fail. To outfox the guerrilla, the 
school advocated that soldiers employ ruses and deceptions, operate 
at night and in inclement weather, and leave ambush parties behind to 
catch unsuspecting enemies as they investigated abandoned positions. 
It also recommended using small, seemingly vulnerable units as bait 
to tempt the irregulars into attacking, thereby exposing themselves to 
a powerful riposte by reaction forces. In fact, the school stressed the 
importance of maintaining ready reaction forces at all levels, for “this 
is the crux of our tactical doctrine: use minimum forces to find the 
guerrilla and maintain maximum forces, preferably airborne or airmo¬ 
bile, in an advanced state of readiness to react to any located guerrilla 
force.” 91 

Emulating principles that the old Indian fighting Army would have 
well understood. Army schools preached continuous, aggressive action, 
for in the words of one text, “if the guerrilla is kept running, fighting 
and hiding long enough, attrition from casualties, desertions and the 
loss of contact with the civilian population can cause the guerrilla band 
to break up to a point where they could be effectively controlled by 
police.” Reflecting the small-unit focus of Army doctrine, the Infantry 
School’s career course spent only four hours considering division and 
larger operations, compared to forty-one hours on brigade, battalion, 
and company operations. Clear-and-hold-type pacification opera¬ 
tions were the infantry battalion’s bread and butter, for according to 
the school, “no large coordinated action in the conventional sense will 
take place . . . until there is a requirement for offensive action against a 
located guerrilla force. The majority of the day-by-day activity . . . will 
be small-unit action to locate guerrilla forces, secure the population, 
installations, and lines of communication, train and assist the indig¬ 
enous paramilitary forces, and conduct military civic action.”^ 


263 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Notwithstanding the requirement that the Infantry School produce 
combat leaders, the school in no way ignored counterinsurgency’s 
many political facets. “The important thing,” it reminded its pupils, 
“is to realize that from the very start you are fighting an ideology. 
And, since shooting guerrillas is a very ineffective way to destroy an 
ideology . . . actions on the counterinsurgency battlefield at all levels 
of command must be a total military-civilian effort to both destroy the 
armed guerrilla of an insurgency and attack this ideological root of the 
resistance.” In fact, the school devoted approximately twelve hours of 
instruction to civic action, during which instructors explained to their 
students that “the guerrilla force is only a symptom of the over-all 
problem in the area which caused the resistance movement to arise in 
the first place. Prior to, during, and following the successful comple¬ 
tion of counterguerrilla operations, a positive program of civil assis¬ 
tance to the area must be conducted to eliminate the original cause of 
the resistance movement.” 93 

Curricular materials also reviewed counterinfrastructure and police- 
style population- and resource-control measures. While preaching an 
overall policy of enlightened moderation, the school conceded that 
“if it cannot be determined which portion of the civilian population 
is actively supporting the irregular force, harsh measures may have to 
be used with the entire population until such a determination can be 
made.” While the Army clearly discouraged severity, such statements 
were not unusual, and other schools flirted with equally distasteful 
practices, including the Special Warfare School, which advised its 
students that the “children of known guerrillas should be separated 
from their parents to prevent further subversion and act as a deter¬ 
rent to association with the guerrillas.” The destruction of crops and 
foodstuffs, the creation of forbidden zones “where anyone in the area 
will be shot on sight,” and the resettlement of populations were also to 
be included in the counterinsurgent’s arsenal, although Army schools 
cautioned that such actions were measures of last resort and had to 
be implemented with care lest they cause undue hardship and fan the 
flames of resistance. 94 

While most instruction given at Fort Benning was generic in nature, 
neither it nor its sister institutions could ignore the growing conflagra¬ 
tion in Vietnam. The Infantry School began presenting information 
about Vietnam in 1962, as the Kennedy administration dramatically 
increased America’s presence there. The school related information 
based on reports from the field and occasionally employed Vietnam 
scenarios in its tests and exercises. In 1963 the school modified its 
traditional small arms instruction, which had focused on long-range 


264 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


marksmanship, to include “quick fire' 1 techniques designed to allow 
soldiers to respond rapidly and effectively to the type of close-in, sur¬ 
prise targets often encountered in jungle ambushes. The Infantry School 
also introduced in 1963 a voluntary forty-hour course on Vietnam for 
students who were slated to go there upon graduation. A mixture of U.S. 
soldiers who had recently returned from Vietnam and South Vietnamese 
who were currently students at the school taught the class. The follow- 
ing year the assistant commandant, Brig. Gen. John Norton, initiated 
a “Win in Vietnam” program. He formed committees that considered 
various aspects of the war and recommended doctrinal, training, and 
organizational improvements. The school reviewed the curriculum to 
ensure that it was as effective as possible in preparing officers for duty 
in Vietnam. The Infantry School also launched a variety of initiatives 
that included inviting Vietnam veterans as guest speakers, publishing 
articles, assembling special reading materials, and organizing displays 
and demonstrations. As the United States moved toward intervention, 
the school redoubled its efforts. By 1965 it was operating two mock 
South Vietnamese villages, complete with female inhabitants drawn 
from the Womens Army Corps, who were used to teach search and 
seizure techniques. 45 

Students who passed through the Infantry or other branch-level 
schools in the early 1960s would have found much of their course 
material repeated at the Command and General Staff College. This 
represented a deliberate policy, as the college was well aware that many 
of its students might have attended branch schools prior to the introduc¬ 
tion of counterinsurgency into those curriculums. To ensure a common 
base of understanding, the school reviewed the entire sweep of coun¬ 
terinsurgency doctrine, from national policy and nation-building theory 
to tactics. The college naturally focused, however, on organizational, 
operational, and planning issues in accordance with its overall mission 
of producing mid-level commanders and staff officers. 

Like all Army schools, the college steadily increased the amount of 
time devoted to counterinsurgency issues throughout the early 1960s. 
By 1964 the Command and General Staff College provided 42 hours of 
direct counterinsurgency instruction, with another 171 hours of related 
material scattered throughout the 38-week course. Students studied 
case histories from Greece, Algeria, Malaya, and the Philippines, with 
about 18 percent of the student body writing theses on counterinsur¬ 
gency-related subjects. As part of the training, the college put students 
to work drafting hypothetical counterinsurgency plans, advisory proce¬ 
dures, and intervention deployments for a variety of countries, real and 
imagined, all in accordance with current national policies and doctrines. 


265 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Although school exercises occasionally depicted division-size encircle¬ 
ment operations, for the most part the school’s curriculum emphasized 
the type of brigade, battalion, and small-unit area control techniques 
that lay at the heart of U.S. doctrine. Civic and psychological actions 
also featured prominently in school exercises, as did questions relating 
to the formation of paramilitary defense organizations, the imposition 
of population and resource controls, and, when necessary, the resettle¬ 
ment of populations. 96 

Those officers who were fortunate enough to be selected to attend 
the Army’s highest educational institution, the Army War College, 
concentrated their studies on such subjects as national policy, strategy, 
and interagency coordination. The school introduced irregular warfare 
in 1961 when the “Concepts of Future Land Warfare” course dedicated 
twelve of its sixteen study committees to counterinsurgency questions. 
The following year coverage of low intensity conflict grew to about 12 
percent of the curriculum, with about 10 percent of the students writing 
counterinsurgency theses. In 1962 the college also hosted two senior 
officer counterinsurgency courses, each of three weeks’ duration. 
Although these courses were designed to immerse a select group of 
nonstudent officers in counterinsurgency issues, the college permitted 
the general student body to attend a number of the lectures as well. 97 

In 1963 the college introduced a 3 /4-week course on the developing 
world. The course focused on the problems of modernization, the nature 
and causes of insurgency, and the U.S. response. By 1965 the college 
had expanded this course to five weeks. In addition, the school required 
that all students write papers on some aspect of low intensity warfare. 
Meanwhile the college kept abreast of the latest developments by hold¬ 
ing special seminars and panel discussions on Vietnam. Thus by 1965 the 
Army’s school system had assembled a creditable, though by no means 
flawless, program of instruction that sought to ensure that all officers, 
from cadets to generals, were exposed to counterinsurgency doctrine. 98 

Disseminating Doctrine: The Training System 

While the Army transmitted counterinsurgency theory to its officers 
through lectures and readings, training provided the best means to test 
students’ understanding, reinforce doctrinal precepts, and refine tactics 
and techniques. It was also the Army’s primary means of acquainting 
rank-and-file soldiers with the counterguerrilla mission. 

At the outset of the Kennedy administration Army regulations 
required that every recruit receive four hours of antiguerrilla instruc¬ 
tion as part of basic combat training, with an additional eight hours for 


266 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


rifle companies. Army leaders evinced little enthusiasm for imposing 
additional hours of mandatory counterguerrilla training at the expense 
of conventional combat capability. They also considered that most of 
the conventional skills taught to individuals and small units were fully 
applicable to counterguerrilla warfare. True, tactics might have to be 
modified to meet local conditions, and soldiers would undoubtedly 
have to demonstrate a higher degree of aptitude in certain individual 
skills, but the Army believed that it could accommodate these require¬ 
ments with only minor changes to conventional training programs. 
Given the fact that military training schedules were already heavily bur¬ 
dened to meet the diverse requirements of nuclear, chemical, airmobile, 
and conventional warfare, the Army initially decided against imposing 
a separate counterinsurgency training program. Rather, as with officer 
education, it opted to integrate counterguerrilla instruction into the 
normal training regimen. w 

The Continental Army Command officially affirmed this policy in 
May 1961, when it issued its first training directive of the Kennedy era. 
The directive encouraged training officers to integrate counterinsur¬ 
gency into routine training, asserting that this could easily be done as 
918 of the 1,443 hours that made up the Army’s core training programs 
concerned subjects that had some counterinsurgency application. It 
also recommended that rifle companies incorporate counterguerrilla 
situations into exercises and that major unit commanders designate 
portions of their commands for more intensive irregular warfare train¬ 
ing. But beyond this it did not go, specifying neither the quantity nor 
content of such training. 

By focusing on the training of individuals and small groups of 
specialists rather than units, the May 1961 directive clearly reflected 
the Army’s belief that the United States intended to follow an advisory, 
rather than interventionist, approach to the counterinsurgency problem. 
Unfortunately, the individual training approach, when coupled with 
the Army’s initial categorization of counterinsurgency as a subset of 
special warfare, created an impression among many soldiers that coun¬ 
terinsurgency was really only something that Special Forces had to be 
concerned with. This, of course, was not the true position of either the 
administration or the Army. To drive home this point, CONARC issued 
a new training directive in September 1961 that clearly stated that the 
“task of improving the capability of the Army to cope with counterin¬ 
surgency/counterguerrilla warfare now involves the entire army and not 
special forces alone. All combat forces must develop a broad base of 
knowledge. . . . Counterinsurgency and counterguerrilla operations are 
the entire army’s business and all elements must become familial with 


267 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


their respective roles and develop the required proficiency in this type 
of warfare.” The directive mandated that all Army personnel receive 
training in the nature, causes, prevention, and elimination of third 
world insurgency, to include the employment of intelligence, medical, 
civil affairs, and psychological assets. Individuals or units assigned to 
counterinsurgency missions were to receive specialized training beyond 
this, including appropriate language and cultural skills. The September 
regulations also directed that certain divisions, most notably those in 
the Strategic Army Corps, provide intensive counterguerrilla training 
to at least some of their component units. Meanwhile, CONARC began 
revising many of its Army training programs (ATPs) and Army training 
tests (ATTs) to include suggestions as to how counterinsurgency sub¬ 
jects might be integrated into conventional training regimens. 101 

Even these measures fell short. A survey of officers enrolled in 
the infantry officer career course at Fort Benning in 1961 found that 
while 47 percent of them had conducted counterguerrilla training in 
their units prior to coming to the school, only 22 percent believed that 
training had been adequate. A subsequent study in January 1962 led by 
Lt. Gen. Hamilton H. Howze concurred in this assessment and advised 
that all eight Regular Army divisions based in the continental United 
States be given counterguerrilla training. Continental Army Command 
responded to these criticisms in March 1962 by revising the counter¬ 
guerrilla training directive yet again. 102 

The new directive made a distinction between “counterinsur¬ 
gency” and “counterguerrilla” training. Counterinsurgency train¬ 
ing included the whole range of insurgency-related issues, from the 
nature of Maoist insurgency and the revolution of rising expectations 
to America’s national strategy, nation building, and Army roles and 
missions. Counterguerrilla training focused more narrowly on the 
actions military units would take when operating against irregular 
forces. According to the directive, all soldiers were to be trained for 
counterguerrilla warfare, and all soldiers were to receive familiariza¬ 
tion training in counterinsurgency. However, only designated “coun¬ 
terinsurgency forces”—primarily Special Forces and other elements 
assigned to what would eventually become the SAFs and SAF backup 
brigades—were to receive intensive training in both counterinsurgency 
and counterguerrilla warfare, to include an annual six-week training 
cycle for the backup brigades. 

The March 1962 directive reiterated CONARC’s policy that com¬ 
manders integrate counterguerrilla subjects into all phases of training 
to the maximum extent possible, including training tests, exercises, 
and maneuvers. To assist in this task, the directive enumerated subjects 


268 




The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


that lent themselves to counterguerrilla training. It also required that 
all active duty inlantry, armor, combat engineer, military police, and 
cannon artillery units conduct two three-day counterguerrilla exercises 
every year. Administrative and technical units were required to devote 
ninety-two hours a year to counterguerrilla training and to partake in 
semiannual counterguerrilla field exercises. The regulation specifically 
directed that civil affairs and civic action, psychological operations, 
and intelligence issues be integrated into all phases of counterguerrilla 
training. Continental Army Command further ordered that training at 
all levels focus on the formation and operation of small, mobile task 
forces, from squad to battle group, capable of undertaking independent 
or semi-independent action. Patrol, reaction, police, and clear-and- 
hold-type activities, rather than large-scale operations, were to be the 
order of the day. 103 

This directive represented a significant step forward over the first 
regulation issued less than a year earlier. Nevertheless, the Army’s 
adherence to a strategy of integrated instruction and decentralized exe¬ 
cution created a situation in which the amount and quality of instruc¬ 
tion inevitably varied from unit to unit. Moreover, although CONARC 
encouraged commanders to modify standard Army training tests for 
use in counterguerrilla training, it never issued an Army-wide test for 
counterguerrilla operations. Since military trainers, like most educators 
operating under a regime of standardized exams, tended to focus their 
efforts on preparing their charges for what was on the tests, the lack 
of an official test for counterguerrilla warfare undermined the Army’s 
efforts to persuade commanders to devote precious training time to the 
subject. 104 

Commanders’ reluctance to deviate from conventional norms was 
particularly troublesome in the area of small-unit leadership, which the 
Army understood was critical in conducting highly dispersed opera¬ 
tions. Conventional training regimens generally did not accord junior 
officers and noncommissioned officers at the fire team, squad, and 
platoon levels much opportunity to plan and direct independent opera¬ 
tions. A 1962 survey of students at the Infantry School found that 61 
percent of the respondents could not recall having received any coun¬ 
terguerrilla leadership training in their units, while 19 percent stated 
that their units engaged in such training only occasionally. On the other 
hand, 20 percent of the students reported that their parent brigades and 
divisions had indeed established special counterguerrilla leadership 
academies, some of which offered courses of up to three weeks’ dura¬ 
tion. Such institutions became more common as the decade progressed, 
as commanders became ever more aware of the need to improve their 


269 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



“Guerrillas ” maneuver during a 1962 counterguerrilla exercise at Fort 

Carson, Colorado. 


units’ counterguerrilla proficiency. In fact, while some units did little 
more than the minimum expected of them, others well exceeded Army 
standards. Weaknesses remained, however, even in crack outfits like 
the 173d Airborne Brigade, which prior to its deployment to Vietnam 
in May 1965 had seldom given its junior noncommissioned officers the 
opportunity to lead independent patrols, a skill that would soon be in 
high demand. 111 ' 

Technically, CONARC’s regulations only applied to units in the 
continental United States, but overseas Army commands generally fol¬ 
lowed CONARC’s lead. This was especially true in Asia, where U.S. 
Army, Pacific, imposed mandatory counterguerrilla training for all 
combat and combat support units. By the spring of 1962 its three major 
units—the 7th and 25th Infantry Divisions and 1st Cavalry Division— 
were all operating special counterinsurgency schools, while the U.S. 
Eighth Army had a counterinsurgency study group as well. 106 

Meanwhile, back home Continental Army Command introduced 
a special lecture program for all incoming recruits. It consisted of 
two hours of counterinsurgency and one hour of counterguerrilla 
orientation in basic training, with the two-hour counterinsurgency 
lecture repeated in advanced individual training, supplemented by 
a three-hour course on communism. These courses reviewed Maoist 
principles, endorsed land reform and economic growth as tools to 
eliminate the causes of disaffection, and cited historical examples 


270 




The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 



“Guerrilla ” mortarmen emerge from concealment 
during Vietnam-oriented training. 


of counterinsurgency operations. The orientation programs also 
reviewed Communist tactics based on Viet Minh manuals and warned 
soldiers that they would have to modify conventional tactics if they 
were to defeat such an opponent."’ 

By the end of 1962 CONARC had erected special counterguerrilla 
reaction and testing courses at each of its major recruit training facili¬ 
ties, with the command claiming that 25 percent of all recruit train¬ 
ing was now directly related to counterinsurgency. It had also begun 
encouraging commanders to integrate Vietnam experience into their 
training programs, assisting them by periodically disseminating the lat¬ 
est lessons learned from that part of the world. Finally, in November, 
in the most important training development of the year, Continental 
Army Command mandated that all regular combat units in the United 
States conduct six weeks of counterguerrilla training annually. The new 
program was identical to that established in March for the backup bri¬ 
gades and consisted of three phases, each of two weeks’ duration. The 
first phase focused on individual and Ranger-type training. The second 
phase consisted of small-unit counterguerrilla tactics, while the third 
phase was devoted entirely to field training, culminating in a battalion- 
level exercise."’" 

The six-week counterguerrilla training program represented the 
single largest block of mandatory training imposed by the Continental 
Army Command. Many commanders disliked the requirement, 


271 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


believing that it was too restrictive and that it contravened the latitude 
the Army customarily accorded commanders in managing their train¬ 
ing time. Although the command refused to budge on this issue, it did 
eventually reduce the number of hours of counterinsurgency lectures 
given to recruits on the grounds that many of the subjects were too 
abstract for young soldiers to absorb. Still, by 1963 all of the ele¬ 
ments of the Army’s counterinsurgency and counterguerrilla training 
program were in place. All soldiers were expected to be familiar with 
the general precepts of American counterinsurgency doctrine, and all 
underwent some form of mandatory counterguerrilla training each 
year, with combat units receiving the most intense training. Although 
training increasingly took on a Vietnam focus as the decade wore on, 
officially training was to be generic in nature. Only after receiving 
notification of a possible overseas deployment were units to begin 
training for a specific theater of operations during a short, intensive 
program that would include both general counterguerrilla and country- 
specific environmental and cultural training. Such an approach was 
essential due to the impossibility of predicting where units might be 
called upon to serve. 1(W 

CONARC assisted officers in crafting their training programs with 
an extensive catalog of all available counterinsurgency training materi¬ 
als. Several manuals were also particularly useful to the trainer, including 
FM 30-102, Aggressor Forces (1963), which provided advice on inte¬ 
grating guerrillas into training exercises; FM 31-30, Jungle Operations 
(1960); FM 31-30, Jungle Training and Operations (1965); and FM 
57-35, Airmobile Operations (1960 and 1963). Other manuals of spe¬ 
cial utility were FM 31-18, Long Range Patrols (1962 and 1965); FM 
21-75, Combat Training of the Individual Soldier and Patrolling (1962); 
and FM 21-50, Ranger Training and Ranger Operations (1962). 

FM 31-18, Long Range Patrols , described the organization, func¬ 
tion, and operation of long-range reconnaissance patrols (LRRPs). 
These were small teams of highly trained soldiers whose primary 
mission was to gather intelligence and acquire targets deep in enemy 
territory—a concept the Army would shortly put to the test in Vietnam. 
FM 21-75, Combat Training of the Individual Soldier and Patrolling , 
not only covered ambush, patrol, and airmobile techniques applicable 
to counterguerrilla warfare, but also impressed upon each soldier the 
importance of proper behavior toward civilians, noting that 

practicing self-discipline is an extremely important part of combating the 
guerrilla. Almost every man is proud of the spiritual values, culture, and cus¬ 
toms of his country. If you ignore or neglect the importance of these items, 


272 



The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 



Soldiers search “dead” insurgents that they have just 
ambushed during training. 


hatred of you and sympathy for the guerrilla will result. The guerrilla desires 
to spread resentment against you and your country. Disregarding these con¬ 
siderations will aid his effort. Self-discipline, combined with a firm, just, and 
understanding policy in dealing with civilians, will reduce chances of guerrilla 
success . 110 

The 1962 edition of FM 21-50, Ranger Training and Ranger 
Operations , further reinforced the Army’s efforts to develop the type 
of highly skilled infantrymen so necessary in counterguerrilla warfare. 
The Ranger movement of the 1950s continued to flourish into the 
1960s, with concomitant benefits for counterguerrilla proficiency as a 
whole. Not only did Army regulations require that all rifle companies 
undergo annual Ranger training, but by 1962, 80 percent of all Regular 
Army second lieutenants had already taken the Ranger course at Fort 
Benning. In 1964 the Army directed that all Regular Army officers 
should take either Ranger or airborne training, and the following year 
the Infantry School revised the Ranger curriculum to include an eigh¬ 
teen-day counterguerrilla phase. Ultimately, in 1966 the Army would 
make Ranger training mandatory for all newly commissioned Regular 
Army officers. 111 

Commanders put all of their training efforts to the test through 
exercises. Initially, most counterguerrilla exercises were merely small 
phases of larger conventional exercises. Such exercises usually had a 


273 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Helicopter shortages meant that soldiers sometimes had to practice 
airmobile operations using mock-ups. 


rear area flavor and were of limited utility. However, as time passed 
all-guerrilla exercises became more common, as did the use of “live” 
guerrillas played by combinations of regular soldiers and Special 
Forces teams. The vast majority of these exercises emphasized small- 
unit operations, patrolling, camp and march security, ambush and coun¬ 
terambush situations, raids, and night and aerial movements. Exercises 
involving entire brigades or divisions in a counterguerrilla role were 
rare. Artillery and tactical airpower were also seldom employed in 
training exercises. More important, the small inventory of helicopters 
meant that few units had any opportunity to practice the airmobile tac¬ 
tics espoused by doctrine. 112 

Perhaps the most difficult aspect for Army trainers to simulate 
was the complex interrelationship between soldiers, civilians, and a 
covert insurgent apparatus. Although many exercises included civil, 
psychological, and intelligence aspects, there was never enough 
time and resources to depict the twilight struggle that occurred in 
the villages. The Army recognized this problem. FM 31-16 (1963) 
declared that “it is impossible to conduct a three- or four-day exer¬ 
cise and expect elements of a large unit to realistically locate, harass, 
consolidate, and eliminate a guerrilla force in its area during the 
available time. Such an operation may take weeks or months in actual 
combat. By the same token, it is impossible in a short-term exercise 
to conduct extensive civic action or police operations concurrently 


274 



The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


with combat operations and receive any significant proficiency in 
the skills involved.”" 3 

The fact ot the matter was that counterinsurgency just did not lend 
itself very well to customary exercise schedules. Although the Army 
never resolved this problem, it did come up with some partial solutions. 
As in the 1950s, one ol the leaders in pacification simulation was the 
25th Infantry Division. The division used mock villages to train its 
soldiers in the full range of pacification strategies, from civic action to 
more severe methods, in which soldiers were instructed to “move the 
people out of the area and then destroy their crops, put the area off lim¬ 
its, and shoot anyone who goes into this area.” 114 Still, there was always 
an air of artificiality about such undertakings. 

A more promising method was available when maneuvers were 
held off military reservations because in these areas the Army was able 
to incorporate local inhabitants into exercise play. The usual technique 
was to have the “guerrillas” enter the maneuver area first to give them 
a chance to familiarize themselves with the terrain and cultivate the 
friendship of the local populace. Then, once the exercise began, the 
counterinsurgents would try to woo the population away from the guer¬ 
rillas. Typically, the counterinsurgents attempted to achieve this goal 
by issuing propaganda, distributing candy, hosting concerts and sport¬ 
ing events, providing free medical care, and performing civil works. 
Sometimes these measures paid off, as occurred during one exercise in 
Germany, where villagers promptly turned in a German Army “guer¬ 
rilla” force after the Americans built the village a soccer field. More 
often than not, the allure of being on the side of the underdog proved too 
great. In exercise after exercise, civilians freely provided guerrillas with 
food, shelter, and information, while giving a cold shoulder to coun¬ 
terinsurgents. During Exercise Helping Hand II, held in Washington 
state, townspeople flew revolutionary flags while children posed for 
guerrilla propaganda photos that purported to show U.S. soldiers killing 
innocent boys and girls. During Exercise Sherwood Forest, also held 
in Washington, businesses temporarily “hired” guerrillas as cover for 
their espionage activities, while a school let the irregulars use its mim¬ 
eograph machine to churn out anti-American pamphlets. During another 
exercise, the inhabitants of a North Carolina town hosted a “guerrilla 
appreciation night” that featured a potluck supper and country music. 

Civilian enthusiasm for the guerrillas was sometimes so intense 
that it became hard to control. In one case, a group of college students 
formed their own partisan unit. In another, a sheriff fired an employee 
who had provided information to counterguerrilla forces, while a seven- 
year-old boy attacked and bit soldiers who had captured a guerrilla who 


275 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Soldiers enter a mock village during counterguerrilla training in 

Hawaii in 1962. 


had befriended him. Sometimes the guerrillas too became unmanage¬ 
able, committing acts of vandalism or establishing bases outside the 
authorized exercise area, a real-life tactic that infuriated counterinsur¬ 
gent players. Ultimately, most counterinsurgents shared the experience 
of the 2d Infantry Division, which ruefully reported after one 1964 
exercise that “civic affairs productions were well-attended and politely 
applauded, but they did not change the basic loyalty of anyone.” 1 " 

The State of Affairs, 1965 

In January 1962, one year after he had initiated the counterinsur¬ 
gency drive, President Kennedy told Secretary of Defense Robert S. 
McNamara that he was “not satisfied that the Department of Defense, 
and in particular the Army, is according the necessary degree of 
attention and effort to the threat of insurgency and guerrilla war.” Just 
a few months later, as General Decker’s new education and training 
initiatives began to take root, the president evinced a more favorable 
attitude, remarking that “they’re beginning to recognize the nature of 
the problem, and what they’re doing at Fort Bragg is really good.” 116 
Whether the president would have been satisfied with the state of 
affairs as they emerged by 1965 is impossible to say. Certainly he 
would have recognized that his strategy for defeating wars of national 
liberation continued to be bedeviled by a number of conceptual, 


276 




The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 



With the help of an interpreter and friendly village officials, an Army 
patrol interrogates captured “guerrillas ” during training. 


organizational, and programmatic weaknesses. Nevertheless, much 
had been achieved. 

In just a few short years the Army had completely restructured its 
divisions into a new configuration more capable of executing the flex¬ 
ible response strategy. It had developed an entirely new dimension of 
warfare—airmobility—and elevated that concept to a prominent place 
in its approach to counterguerrilla warfare. It had improved both the 
quantity and quality of the advice it gave to nations threatened by insur¬ 
gencies by adjusting military assistance programs, expanding Special 
Forces, and creating new entities, like the Special Action Forces, which 
spread American counterinsurgency methods around the globe. It had 
absorbed the thrust of popular counterinsurgency and developmental 
theory and blended these with traditional Army counterguerrilla and 
civil affairs precepts to produce an extensive body of doctrinal litera¬ 
ture. It had also made significant efforts to see that this doctrine was 
understood and practiced by all echelons. While Army leaders had not 
always agreed with the full scope of Kennedy’s policies, they had made 
a creditable effort to implement them. 117 

Such at least was the finding of a special commission established 
by President Johnson in 1965 to review the state of the national coun¬ 
terinsurgency program. The panel, which consisted of representatives of 
every federal agency involved in the counterinsurgency effort, reported 
that the Army was the only agency that had developed a cogent, written 


277 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


doctrine for counterinsurgency and that only it and the Marine Corps 
had comprehensive training programs to disseminate that doctrine to 
all ranks. Given the government’s stance that counterinsurgency was 
primarily a political and not a military phenomenon, the failure of the 
government’s civilian agencies to match the Army’s efforts in develop¬ 
ing and disseminating doctrine did not bode well for a program that 
required a high degree of civil-military coordination."" 

Still, the Army could take pride in its achievements, for after a 
somewhat slow start in 1961, it had by 1965 succeeded in integrating 
counterinsurgency and counterguerrilla warfare in substantive ways 
into its doctrinal, educational, and training systems. At no other time in 
its history had the Army been better prepared to wage a counterinsur¬ 
gency campaign, if preparedness is measured in the amount of manual 
pages, classroom time, and training exercises specifically devoted to 
counterinsurgent warfare. The question was, would it be enough to 
meet Khrushchev’s challenge? 


278 


Notes 


1 Inaugural Address, 20 Jan 61, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United 
States: John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), 

p. 1. 

Quotes from Special Message on Urgent National Needs to Congress, 25 May 
61, in ibid., pp. 397, 399, respectively. Lawrence Grinter, “How They Lost: Doctrines, 
Strategies and Outcomes of the Vietnam War,” Asian Survey 15 (December 1975): 
1112. 

3 First quote from David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random 
House, 1972), p. i (title page). Second quote from Packenham, Liberal America, p. 
61, and see also pp. 6, 18-21, 62-63, 253. Sir Henry Gurney, British high commis¬ 
sioner for Malaya, coined the phrase “hearts and minds” in 1951 to describe efforts 
to defeat Communist guerrillas through political and social action during the Malayan 
emergency. Americans in the 1960s adopted the phrase to describe their own politically 
oriented approach to counterinsurgency. Third quote from CGSC, Counterinsurgency 
Case History, Malaya: 1948-60 , RB 31-2 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: CGSC, 1965), 
p. 6. Shafer, Deadly Paradigms , pp. 9-13, 21, 49-50, 79, 104, 111, 135; DePauw 
and Luz, Winning the Peace , pp. 133-34; Howard Wiarda, Ethnocentrism in Foreign 
Policy: Can We Understand the Third World? (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise 
Institute for Public Policy Research, 1985), pp. 1^4; Charles Maechling, “Insurgency 
and Counterinsurgency: The Role of Strategic Theory,” Parameters 14 (Autumn 1984): 
33. Fourth quote from Latham, Modernization as Ideology , p. 71, and see also pp. 1-8, 
50, 56-68, 166-67. 

4 Quote from Maurice Matloff, ed., American Military History , Army Historical 
Series (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1989), p. 623. 
Department of Defense, Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1965 , p. 21; Weigley, History 
of the United States Army, pp. 527-28; Doughty, Army Tactical Doctrine, pp. 19-22; 
Donald Carter, “From G.I. to Atomic Soldier: The Development of U.S. Army Tactical 
Doctrine, 1945-1956” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1987), pp. 210, 219; Myles 
Marken, “The Atomic Age Divisions,” Army Information Digest 20 (September 1965): 
58-64. 

5 First quoted word from Seymour Deitchman, Limited War and American Defense 
Policy (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1964), p. 4. Second 
quote from Andrew Kauffman, “On ‘Wars of National Liberation,’” Military Review> 
48 (October 1968): 33. Third quoted word from Harry Coles, “Strategic Studies Since 
1945, the Era of Overthink,” Military Review 53 (April 1973): 3. Fourth quote from 
W. Bruce Weinrod, “Counterinsurgency: Its Role in Defense Policy,” Strategic Review> 
2 (Fall 1974): 37. Fifth quote from Richard Schultz et al., Guerrilla Warfare and 
Counterinsurgency: United States-Soviet Policy in the Third World (Lexington, Mass.: 
Lexington Books, 1989), p. 10. For criticisms of the counterinsurgency “fad,” see 
Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp. ix—x, 101, 374, 384—87, 391—96; Bell, Myth of the Guerrilla, p. 
64; Shy and Collier, “Revolutionary War,” in Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret 
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 818-19; 840^12, 857-58. 

6 Quote from Department of the Army (DA), Special Warfare: An Army Specialty 
(1962), pp. 15-16. Memo, Decker for the President, 15 Feb 61, sub: U.S. Army Role 


279 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

in Guerrilla and Anti-Guerrilla Operations, in 385, Secretary of the Army (Secy of the 
Army), 1961-64, RG 335, NARA; Rpt, CSA, n.d., sub: A Compilation of U.S. Army 
Cold War Activities, 1 Jan 61 to 26 Jan 62, p. 11-14, Historians files, CMH (hereafter 
cited as CSA, Cold War Activities). 

Quoted words from Rpt, DCSOPS, 2 Jan 62, sub: Concept of Employment of 
U.S. Army Forces in Paramilitary Operations, p. 2, Historians files, CMH. CSA, Cold 
War Activities, pp. 1-3, 1-4; Jonathan Ladd, “Some Reflections on Counterinsurgency,” 
Military Review 44 (October 1964): 75. 

8 Quote from Stephen Bowman, “The Evolution of United States Army Doctrine for 
Counterinsurgency Warfare: From World War II to the Commitment of Combat Units 
in Vietnam” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1985), p. 134, and see also pp. 5-6. Lloyd 
Norman and John Spore, “Big Push in Guerrilla Warfare,” Army 12 (March 1962): 
34-35. 

Quote from Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era , p. 80. Richard Betts, Soldiers, 
Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), 

р. 130; Ricky Waddell, “The Army and Peacetime Low Intensity Conflict, 1961-1993: 
The Process of Peripheral and Fundamental Military Change” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia 
University, 1994), p. 141; Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” p. 85; Andrew 
Krepinevich, The U.S. Army and Vietnam: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Army 
Concept of War (Fort Bragg, N.C.: U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, 
1984), pp. 25-26; Memos, Krulak for Chair, JCS, 10 Apr 62, sub: Special Group 
(Counterinsurgency), Establishment of Special Group (Counterinsurgency), Wheeler 
files, RG 218, NARA, and Krulak for Lansdale, Rosson, 22 May 62, sub: Counter-guer¬ 
rilla Tactics, 370.64, CSA, 1962, RG 319, NARA. 

10 Quote from Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” p. 85, and see also pp. 113- 
14. David Petraeus, “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of 
Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era” (Ph.D. diss., Woodrow 
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 1987), p. 96. 

11 Quoted words from William Yarborough, “‘Young Moderns’ Are Impetus Behind 
Army’s Special Forces,” Army 12 (March 1962): 38. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen , pp. 10- 
13; Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” p. 179; Thomas Adams, “Military Doctrine 
and the Organization Culture of the U.S. Army” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1990), 
pp. 5-6, 68. 

Quote from Corr and Sloan, Low-Intensity Conflict , p. 21. Charles Maechling, 
“Counterinsurgency: The First Ordeal by Fire,” in Low-Intensity Warfare , ed. Michael 
Klare and Peter Kornbluh (New York: Pantheon, 1988), pp. 26-27; Michael Hennessy, 
Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolutionary Warfare in I Corps, 1965-1972 
(Westport, Conn.: Frederick A. Praeger, 1997), p. 18; George Tanham, War Without 
Guns (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), pp. 7, 24; Memo, Special Group, 
Counterinsurgency, for the President, 20 Jul 62, sub: Report of the Committee on Police 
Assistance Programs, p. 1, Historians files, CMH. 

13 Doughty, Army Tactical Doctrine , pp. 46^48. 

14 Memo, Lt Gen Earle Wheeler, Dir, Joint Staff, for Chair, JCS, 9 Feb 61, sub: 
Review of Lieutenant General McGarr’s Papers, in 3360, JCS 1961, RG 218, NARA. 

15 Special Warfare School, ST 31-180, Readings in Guerrilla Warfare, 1960 and 
1961 editions, and ST 31-170, Tactics and Techniques in Counter-Guerrilla Operations, 

с. 1963. Both at Special Warfare School. Lesson Plan C3.A1408, C6.A1408, Special 
Warfare School, Fundamentals of Counterguerrilla Operations, 1964, pp. LP-61 to 


280 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


LP-64, MHI; Infantry School, Selected Readings, 1962 and 1965 editions, Infantry 
School; T. A. McCarry, Report on the Burma Counterinsurgency Campaign, 1961, 
N-18745.10, CARL; Lesson Plan A2310-1, CGSC, 1965-1966, CARL. As late as 
1965 the Command and General Staff College still employed the German Army’s 1944 
manual, Fighting the Guerrilla Bands , as well as other derivative materials, as course 
reading materials. Lesson Plan A2300, CGSC, 1964-1965 , p. L4-1, CARL. 

16 Veterans of the Philippine and Malayan conflicts, including Air Force Maj. Gen. 
Edward G. Lansdale, Army Lt. Col. Charles T. R. Bohannan, and Britain’s liaison 
officer at the CGSC, Col. Richard L. Clutterbuck, frequently spoke at American educa¬ 
tional institutions in the early 1960s. Examples of publications discussing Malaya and 
the Philippines include G. C. Phipps, “Guerrillas in Malaya,” Infantry 51 (May-June 

1961) : 36^10; William Long, “Counterinsurgency: Some Antecedents for Success,” 
Military Review 43 (October 1963): 90-97; CGSC, Reference Book (RB) 31-3, 
Counterinsurgency Case History, the Philippines, 1946-54, 1965, CGSC. 

For examples of Army translations and studies, see Translation, Anny G-2, 
Counter Guerrilla Training in the Scope of Maintenance in the A.F.N., n.d.; Translation, 
Army G-2, Special Training in Counter Guerrilla Warfare, n.d.; Translation, Army G-2, 
Guerrilla and Counterguerrilla Operations, 1962. All in MHI. Donn Starry, La Guerre 
Revolutionnaire: Some Comments on a Theory of Counterinsurgency Operations 
(Student paper, AWC, 1966); William Malone, Unconventional Warfare: A Look at 
French “Psychological Action” in Algeria (Student paper, AWC, 1962). 

1S Interv, Andrew Birtle with Carl Bernard, 28 Jan 03, and CONARC, 
Counterinsurgency Conference Report, 23-24 March 1962, p. A-16-1, both in 
Historians files, CMH; Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” pp. 139-40; AWC, 
U.S. Army War College Curriculum Coverage of Counterinsurgency, 1961-62, 1962, 
p. 18, MHI; Bernard Fall, “Counterinsurgency: the French Experience,” Industrial 
College of the Armed Forces lecture, 1962. 

19 CONARC, Counterinsurgency Conference Report, 23-24 March 1962, p. 
A-5-1; Program of Instruction (POI) 33-G-F6, Special Warfare School (SWS) 
Counterinsurgency Operations, 1964; Memo, Maj Gen Yarborough for CG, CONARC, 
20 Dec 64, sub: Counterinsurgency Training, with atchs, Historians files, CMH; Ltr, 
Maj Gen Lawrence J. Lincoln, Commandant, U.S. Army Engineer School, to Gen 
Herbert Powell, CG, CONARC, c. 1962, 71A3439, CONARC, RG 338, NARA; Clyde 
Eddleman, The Report of Educational Survey Commission of the United States Army 
Command and General Staff College, November 1962, p. 55, CARL. 

:o Quote from Addendum to Lesson IV-50, History of Military Art Course, U.S. 
Military Academy (USMA), 1962-1963, p. 9. Lesson Plan, USMA 1963-1964, History of 
Military Art, pp. 27, 30-33. Both from the Department of Military Arts and Engineering, 
Organizational History, POI files, USMA, West Point, N.Y. French Operations in Indo¬ 
china, pp. 1-4, 7, atch to Memo, Commander in Chief, Pacific, for Distribution, 16 
Oct 61, sub: Lessons from Limited War Operations, with atchs, Historians files, CMH; 
Charles Biggio, “Let’s Learn from the French,” Military Review 46 (October 1966): 28- 
34; David Foster, Irregular Warfare—Challenge to the Free World (Student paper, AWC, 

1962) , pp. iii, 26, 36; Lesson Plan 112A, SWS, Insurgency Movement, Indochina, 1965, 
pp. LP-1, LP-48, LP-49, LP-65, MHI; Memos, DCSOPS War Plans Div for OPS-PI, n.d., 
sub: Phase III Warfare in Indochina, and Johnson for DCSOPS, 27 Mar 65, both in Geog 
v Indochina, 380 Warfare, CMH; “Phase III Warfare Indochina 1951-1954. Vietnam 
1965?” Weekly Intelligence Digest, WID 18-65 (1965): 14-15. 


281 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

:| Kevin Sheehan, “Preparing for an Imaginary War? Examining Peacetime 
Functions and Changes of Army Doctrine” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1988), 
pp. 376-77; DA, Special Warfare: An Army Specialty (1962); Donald Rattan, 
“Antiguerrilla Operations: A Case Study from History,” Military Review 40 (May 
1960): 23-27. 

22 Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” pp. 49-56; “ACSFOR Comes of Age,” 
Army Information Digest 20 (February 1965): 34-37; CONARC, Historical Background 
of USCONARC Participation in Combat and Materiel Development Activities, Dec 63, 
pp. 1-9, 23-24, 32; John Daley, “U.S. Army Combat Developments Command,” Army 
Information Digest 17 (September 1962): 13-18. 

23 CDC Planning Group, Preliminary Implementation Plan, vol. 3, Field Agencies, 
CDC, 16 Apr 62, ans. A, B, pts. 2 to 7, p. A-iv-A-1; Ltrs, Lt Gen John Daley, CDC 
Planning Group to Director, Reorganization Project Office, 11 May 62, sub: Activation 
of Remote Area Conflict Office, and Decker to Gen Herbert Powell, 8 Mar 62, with 
atched Staff Summary Sheet, Lt Gen Barksdale Hamlett, DCSOPS, to CSA, 26 Feb 62, 
sub: Remote Area Conflict Office. All in 69-0630, CDC, RG 338, NARA. 

24 CONARC, Historical Background of USCONARC Participation in Combat and 
Materiel Development Activities, Dec 63, p. 37; CDC Cir 10-2, 11 Sep 64, 73A2678, 
RG 338, NARA. 

2 ' FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces , 1961, pp. 3-4. For criticism of 
FM 31-15’s view of insurgency, see Laqueur, Guerrilla , p. 377. 

2h FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961, pp. 4, 5, 12-14, 25, 32. 

27 Quoted words from ibid., p. 27, and see also pp. 25-26, 28, 34. 

25 Quote from ibid., p. 21, and see also pp. 17-22, 24, 36-39, 48. 

24 Quotes from ibid., p. 47, and see also pp. 15-18, 33, 36-39. FM 31-20, Operations 
Against Guerrilla Forces, 1951, p. 125. 

30 Quotes from JCS, SM-797-62, 18 Jul 62, sub: Military Accomplishments in the 
Counterinsurgency Field Since 20 January 1961, p. 1-11, and see also pp. 1-1 to 1-12, 
Historians files, CMH (hereafter cited as Joint Concept). 

31 Quote from ibid., p. 1-20, and see also pp. 1-14 to 1-19. Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency 
Era, p. 78. 

32 Quotes from Joint Concept, p. 1-29, and see also p. 1-24. 

33 Overseas Internal Defense Policy, atch to National Security Action Memorandum 
182, Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1 Sep 62 (hereafter cited as OIDP). 

4 Quote from Maechling, “Insurgency and Counterinsurgency,” p. 34. Maechling, 
“Counterinsurgency,” p. 25; Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, p. 18; Schultz, Guerrilla 
Warfare, p. 103; Memo, Maj Gen William R. Peers for Gen Taylor, 15 Dec 65, sub: 
Review of the Committee I Report, Historians files, CMH; CDC Special Warfare Agency, 
Operational, Organizational, and Material Concepts for U.S. Army Counterinsurgency 
Operations During the Period 1970-80, Aug 64, pp. 55, 64-66, 76-77. 

35 Quote from OIDP, p. 17. 

36 Ibid., pp. 17-18; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms , pp. 112, 119. 

37 Memo, Decker for Secy of the Army, 14 Sep 62, sub: Army Responsibilities for 
Counterinsurgency, 385, Secy of the Army, RG 335, NARA. 

Rod Paschall, Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine: Who Needs It?” Parameters 
15 (Autumn 1985): 42; FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations—Operations, 1962, pp 
136-62. 

34 Quote from FM 33-5, Psychological Operations, 1962, p. 124. 


282 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 

Quote from FM 41—10, Civil Affairs Operations , 1962, p. 83, and see also pp 
88-99. 

41 Memo, Lt Gen Barksdale Hamlett, DCSOPS, for CG, CONARC, 7 Dec 61, sub: 
Improvement of U.S. Army Capability To Meet Limited and Cold War Requirements, 
with atchs, 250/12, DCSOPS 1961, RG 319, NARA; CGSC, A Detailed Concept for 

Employment of U.S. Army Combat Units in Military Operations Against Irregular 
Forces, 1962, CARL. 

J ~ Quotes from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations , 1963, p. 92, and see also 
pp. 31-32, 93-98. 

44 Quote from ibid., p. 96, and see also p. 98. 

44 Quote from ibid., p. 37, and see also pp. 24, 38. 

4 First quote from ibid., p. 20. Remaining quotes from ibid., p. 40, and see also pp 
7, 22, 38^12, 111. 

46 Ibid., pp. 8, 40,71,73. 

4_ Quote from ibid., p. 31, and see also pp. 21, 32-35, 49, 53, 55-56. FM 31-21, 
Guerrilla Warfare , 1955, p. 63. For airmobile issues, see FM 1-100 , Army Aviation, 1959 
and 1963; FM 57-35, Airmobile Operations, 1960 and 1963; Cheng, Airmobility , pp. 
125-30, 175-79, 184-87; Marquis Hilbert and Everett Murray, “Use of Army Aviation 
in Counterinsurgency Operations,” U.S. Army Aviation Digest 8 (October 1962): 3-9; 
Rpt, CDC, War Game Evaluation of the Air Assault Division in Counterinsurgency 
Operations in Southeast Asia, Dec 63, C-l895634, CARL; William Griffin, “Army 
Aviation in Support of Counterguerrilla Operations,” U.S. Army Aviation Digest 8 
(September 1962): 9-14. 

45 Quotes from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations , 1963, p. 60, and see also 
pp. 31,49, 61-70. 

49 FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961, pp. 29-31; FM 31-16, 
Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 61-63, 67. 

50 Quote from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, p. 67, and see also 
pp. 69-72. 

51 Quote from FM 6-20-2, Field Artillery Techniques, 1962, p. 81. Infantry School, 
Infantry Battalion Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1962, p. 15; FM 100-5, Field 
Service Regulations — Operations, 1962, pp. 140, 144; Neal Grimland, “The Formidable 
Guerrilla,'’ Army 12 (February 1962): 66; FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla 
Forces, 1951, p. 127; FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961, pp. 14-15; 
FM 61-100, The Division, 1962, pp. 243-44. 

52 Quote from Counterinsurgency III, Infantry Career Subcourse 497, Infantry 
School, 1965, p. 38. Infantry School, Report of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 
15-19 July 1963, p. 119. Compare Great Britain, Ministry of Defence, The Conduct 
of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya (London: Ministry of Defence, 1958), pp. 
XVIII-1 to XVIII-4, with FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 83, 
89. 

53 Quote from FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961, p. 44, and see 
also p. 15; George Tanham, Doctrine and Tactics of Revolutionary Warfare: The Viet 
Minh in Indochina, RM 2395 (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1959), p. 135; FM 31-16, 
Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 84-91; FM 31-22, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency 
Forces, 1963, p. 56; FM 61-100, The Division, 1962, pp. 243-44. 

54 Quote from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, p. 2, and see also pp. 
20, 75-76, 79-83, 103-11. 


283 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


55 Special Warfare School, ST 31-176, Counterinsurgency Planning Guide, 2d ed., 
1964, pp. 39-16, 77, 80-87, 94-113. 

56 FM 31-22, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Forces, 1963, pp. 20-45, 75-76. 

57 First quote from ibid., p. 84. Second quote from Great Britain, Conduct of Anti- 
Terrorist Operations, p. III-ll. FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, p. 37; 
Boyd Bashore, “Organization for Frontless War,” Military Review 44 (May 1964): 10, 
16; Special Warfare School, ST 31-176, Counterinsurgency Planning Guide, 2d ed., 
1964, p. 70; FM 31-73, Advisor Handbook for Counterinsurgency, 1965, p. 28; Infantry 
School, Report of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 15-19 July 1963, p. 118; John 
McCuen, The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 
1966), p. 327. 

58 Quotes from FM 31-22, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Forces, 1963, p. 55, and 
see also pp. 70-71. 

59 Quotes from ibid., pp. 61, 81, respectively, and see also pp. 4-5, 9, 60, 77, 96-97, 
110-17. 

60 Quote from FM 100-20, Field Service Regulations, Counterinsurgency, 1964, p. 
20, and see also pp. 1-10. 

61 CONARC, CONARC World Wide Combat Arms Conference II, vol. 3, 25-29 
Jun 62, p. 56; Annual Hist Sum, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Force 
Development (OACSFOR), 1 Jul 63 to 30 Jun 64, pp. E-I-l, E-I-2; Rpt, HQDA, U.S. 
Army Special Warfare Study and Program, Fiscal Years (FYs) 63-68, 1962, pp. 76-77, 
DCSOPS, RG 319, NARA. 

b: FM 31-20, Special Forces Operational Techniques, 1965, pp. 47, 49-50, 68-69; 
Special Warfare Agency, Doctrinal Literature for Special Warfare, 1964, pp. 1, 4-6, 
26-31, and an. B, pp. 1-7, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA. 

63 Quote from Ltr, Gen Johnson to Lt Gen Dwight Beach, CG, CDC, 24 Aug 64, 
73-2678, CDC, RG 338, NARA. Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” pp. 127-31; 
Memos, Col Darnell, CDC, for Maj Gen Harry L. Hillyard, 13 Apr 64, sub: Aftermath 
of General H. K. Johnson’s Vietnam Visit, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA; Lt Gen 
Harold K. Johnson, DCSOPS, for Dir of Special Warfare, 14 Apr 64, sub: Special 
Warfare Doctrine, p. 2, Historians files, CMH; and Johnson for ACSFOR, 29 Jun 64, 
sub: Doctrine, Training and Organization for Counter Insurgency, Historians files, 
CMH. 

64 Ltr, Gen Johnson to Gen Hugh Harris, CG, CONARC, 29 Oct 64, 71A2333, RG 
338, NARA. 

65 Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” pp. 128-31; Rpt, CDC, Nov 64, sub: 
Program for Analysis and Development of U.S. Counterinsurgency Doctrine and 
Organization, p. B-3, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA (hereafter cited as CDC, 
Program for Analysis). 

Quotes from FM 31-73, Advisor Handbook for Counterinsurgency, 1965, pp. 22, 
87, respectively, and see also pp. 58-63, 67, 180-81. Other texts also cautioned against 
indiscriminate fire. See, for example, FM 6-20-1, Field Artillery’ Tactics, 1965, p. 48; 
Infantry School, Infantry Battalion Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1962, p. 15. 

' Quote from CDC, Program for Analysis, p. 3, and see also pp. 1, 4. Briefing, CDC 
Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group to Gen Ben Harrell, CG, CDC, 5 May 66, CDC, 
73A2677, RG 338, NARA. 

68 Quote from CDC, Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group, Concepts and General 
Doctrine for Counterinsurgency, Jul 65, pp. 56-57. Memo, Lt Gen Dwight Beach, CG, 


284 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


CDC, for Distribution, 8 Dec 64, sub: Counterinsurgency Doctrinal Review Program; 
Fact Sheet, CDC, 4 Jan 66, sub: Program for Analysis and Development of US 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Organization. All in 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA. 
Ltr, Johnson to Beach, 29 Oct 64, 71A3439, CONARC, RG 338, NARA. 

Quote from CDC, Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group, Concepts and General 
Doctrine for Counterinsurgency, Jul 65, p. 98, and see also pp. 26-27, 73-74, 79, 83 

70 Ibid., p. 98. 

71 Ibid., p. 99. 

Quotes from Special Warfare Agency, Doctrinal Literature for Counterinsurgency, 
1965, pp. 35, 56, respectively, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA. Bashore, “Organization 
for Frontless War,” pp. 10, 16; FM 61-100, The Division , 1965, p. 149; Gustav Gillert, 
“Counterinsurgency,” Military Review 45 (April 1965): 31; FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla 
Operations , 1963, pp. 47, 69; Henry Emerson, Can We Out-Guerrilla the Communist 
Guerrillas? (Student paper, AWC, 1965), pp. 45-52. 

First quote from SORO, Motivating Populations To Support Counterinsurgency, 
1965, p. 9, and see also pp. Ill, 169, 23A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA. Remaining 
quotes from Special Operations Research Office, Symposium Proceedings. The 
U.S. Army’s Limited-War Mission and Social Science Research (Washington, D.C.: 
American University, 1962), p. 163. 

74 First two quotes from Memo, Lt Gen Palmer for CSA, c. 1965, sub: Study on 
Lower Spectrum Conflict—WINS-II. Third quote from Study, DCSOPS, 1965, sub: A 
Worldwide Integral National Strategy for 1970, pt. II, p. 21. Both in 68A2344, RG 319, 
NARA. 

Rpt, Counter-insurgency Operations Instruction and Related Matters, pp. 9-10, 
atch to Memo, Brig Gen Richard Stilwell for Secy of the Army, 6 Oct 61, sub: Report 
on the Counter-insurgency Operations Course and Related Matters, 319.1, CSA, RG 
319, NARA. Rpt, Brig Gen Stilwell, 13 Oct 61, sub: Army Activities in Underdeveloped 
Areas Short of Declared War, pp. 47-48, atch to Memo, Stilwell for Secy of the Army, 
13 Oct 61, sub: Army Activities in Underdeveloped Areas Short of Declaring War, 
and Rpt, CONARC, 28 Jan 62, sub: Special Warfare Board, Final Report, p. 5, both in 
Historians files, CMH. 

76 SWS, A Summary of Counter Guerrilla Operational Concepts, 1961, pp. 1-3, 
12; POI, SWS, Counter-Guerrilla Operations, Oct 60, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, 
Counterinsurgency Training for Officers in Military Schools, p. 13, atch to Memo, 
Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Special Warfare Activities (SACSA) for Dep 
Secy of Defense, 14 May 62, sub: Training Objectives for Counterinsurgency, 3360, JCS 
1961, RG 218, NARA. 

7 Rpt, JCS, n.d., sub: Development Status of Military Counterinsurgency Programs, 
Including Counterguerrilla Forces, as of 1 August 1965, p. Ill-106, C-l5361.90, 
CARL. 

78 POI 41-G-F7, Civil Affairs School, Civic Action, 1963, Historians files, CMH; 
Barber and Ronning, Internal Security, pp. 152-54; Civil Affairs School, ST 41-10-90, 
Command and Staff Guidelines for Civic Action, 1964. 

79 By 1962 the Infantry School had accumulated 202 publications on counterin¬ 
surgency. D. M. Condit et al., A Counterinsurgency Bibliography (Washington, D.C.: 
American University, Special Operations Research Office, 1963); Infantry School, 
Military Operations Against Irregular Forces: A Bibliography of Works Available in the 
U.S. Army Infantry School Library, 1962, Infantry School. 


285 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


80 The Infantry journal alone published over seventy articles pertaining to unconven¬ 
tional and counterinsurgency warfare between 1961 and 1965. Memo, Lemnitzer for 
Maj Gen Clifton, 23 Jan 62, sub: Coverage on Guerrilla and Counter-Guerrilla War in 
Professional Military Journals, 370.64, Lemnitzer, RG 218, NARA. 

81 POI 33-G-F8, SWS, Senior Officer Counterinsurgency and Special Warfare 
Orientation Course, 1962; William Peers, “Meeting the Challenge of Subversion,” Army 
15 (November 1964): 97; Rpt, JCS 1969/212, 1 Jun 61, sub: Status of Development of 
Counterguerrilla Forces, p. 1867, C-15361.90-A, CARL. 

82 The statistics are for the Infantry and Special Forces branch career courses as 
of July 1961. Hours Programmed for Instruction in Counterguerrilla Warfare in U.S. 
Army Service Schools, 28 Jul 61, Incl 2 to Memo, DCSOPS for Dir, Joint Staff, 28 Jul 

61, sub: Status of Development of Counter Guerrilla Forces, 250/15, DCSOPS 1961, 
RG 319, NARA; CONARC, Counterinsurgency Conference Report, 23-24 March 
1962, pp. A-10-3 and A-10-11; Rpt, JCS, n.d., sub: Development Status of Military 
Counterinsurgency Programs, Including Counterguerrilla Forces, as of August 1965, 
p. II-4. 

83 Rpt, JCS 1969/330, 9 Apr 62, sub: Status of Development of Counterguerrilla 
Forces, pp. 6, 16-17, C-15361.90-A, CARL; Memo, SWS to CG, CONARC, 19 Mar 

62, sub: Common Subject “Counterinsurgency Operations,” N-l8517.50, CARL; 
Rpt, Counterinsurgency Training for Officers in Military Schools, p. 12, atch to 
Memo, SACSA for Dep Secy of Defense, 14 May 62, sub: Training Objectives for 
Counterinsurgency. 

84 Quotes from Ltr, Stilwell to DCSOPS, 7 Mar 62, sub: Counterinsurgency 
Instruction at USMA. Memo, Stilwell for Superintendent, USMA, 10 May 62, sub: 
Interim Report of the Counterinsurgency Committee. Both in 10002-02, Training 
(Counterinsurgency Committee), Training Operations files, USMA. Krepinevich, The 
U.S. Army and Vietnam: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Army Concept of War, pp. 
61-62; Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” p. 110. 

85 National Security Action Memorandum 131, Training Objectives to Combat 
Subversive Insurgency, 13 Mar 62, 3360, JCS 1961, RG 218, NARA. Rpts, DA, c. 
62, sub: U.S. Army Special Warfare Study and Program, FY 63-68, pp. 55, 75-76; 
Brig Gen Stillwell, 13 Oct 61, sub: Army Activities in Underdeveloped Areas Short of 
Declared War; and CONARC, 28 Jan 62, sub: Special Warfare Board, Final Report, 
pp. 4, 12, 52. All in Historians files, CMH. Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” 
pp. 93-97. 

8( ' Rpt, Counterinsurgency Training for Officers in Military Schools, pp. 12-13, atch 
to Memo, SACSA for Dep Secy of Defense, 14 May 62, sub: Training Objectives for 
Counterinsurgency; Ltr, Powell, CG, CONARC, to Distribution, 15 Aug 62, 71A2333, 
RG 338, NARA. Rpts, HQDA, U.S. Army Special Warfare Study and Program, FY 
63-68, 1962, p. 70; JCS, n.d., sub: Development Status of Military Counterinsurgency 
Programs, Including Counterguerrilla Forces, as of 1 August 1963, p. II-4, C-l5361.90, 
CARL; and JCS, n.d., sub: Development Status of Military Counterinsurgency 
Programs, Including Counterguerrilla Forces, as of February 1964, p. II-4, C-l 5361.90, 
CARL. Briefing, CGSC to Maj Gen Peers, 11 Oct 65, sub: Individual Counterinsurgency 
Training, p. 5, Historians files, CMH. 

87 Quote from CONARC SubjScd 444, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Military 
Science II and III, Introduction to Counterinsurgency Operations, 1963, p. 8. 
“Counterguerrilla Units Flourish in ROTC,” Army Reservist 9 (April 1963): 15; David 


286 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


Blackledge, “ROTC Counterguerrillas,” Infantry 53 (January-February 1963): 49-50; 
Rpt, JCS, n.d., sub: Development Status ot Military Counterinsurgency Programs, 
Including Counterguerrilla Forces, as of 1 August 1965, pp. II-2 to II-4. 

ss First Class Staff Study, USMA, Office of Military Instruction, Department of 
Tactics, 1963, p. 3, 1011-03, Course Publication files, Curriculum—Tactics; POI, 
USMA, History of Military Art Course 401-402, Department of Military Art and 
Engineering, Organizational History, POI files; The Combined Arms Team (Company), 
USMA, Office of Military Instruction, Department of Tactics, 1963; Memo, Brig 
Gen Michael S. Davison, Commandant of Cadets, for Superintendent, USMA, 8 Jul 
63, sub: Report of Counterinsurgency Committee, p. 5, and atched paper, Regular 
Counterinsurgency Instruction, 1963—64, 10002—02, Training (Counterinsurgency 
Committee), Training Operations files; Program of Military Instruction, 1963-64, Dept, 
of Tactics, 1011-03, Course Pub. files, Curriculum—Tactics; The Combined Arms 
Team (Battalion), USMA, Office of Military Instruction, Department of Tactics, 1963. 
All at USMA. 

89 Quote from Infantry School, Report of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 15-19 
July 1963, pp. 105-06, and see also pp. 108-09. 

Ibid., p. 127; Bobby Boyd, Does the Infantry Officer Career Course Counter- 
Guerrilla Instruction Meet the Needs of the Infantry Officer? (Student paper, Infantry 
Officers Career Course (IOCC), Infantry School, 1961); Peter Andre, Counter Guerrilla 
Warfare (Student paper, IOCC, Infantry School, 1960-61); POI 7-A-C20, Infantry 
School, Infantry Officer Basic Course, 1963; Memo, W. Hamilton, CDC Special 
Warfare Group, for Col Marr, 31 Aug 64, sub: Counterinsurgency Courses, 73A2677, 
CDC, RG 338, NARA; POI 2-7-C20, Infantry School, Infantry Officer Basic Course, 

1965. 

91 Quote from Infantry School, Report of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 15-19 
July 1963, p. 123, and see also p. 109. Counterinsurgency II, Infantry Career Subcourse 
497, Infantry School, Apr 65, p. 3; Counterinsurgency III, Infantry Career Subcourse 
497, Infantry School, Apr 65, p. 76. 

42 First quote from SWS, ST 31-170, Counter-Guerrilla Operations, p. 38. Second 
quote from Infantry School, Report of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 15-19 July 
1963, p. 118. Infantry School, Military Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1962, p. 39; 
POI 7-A-C22, Infantry School, Infantry Officer Career Course, 1963. 

93 First quote from Infantry School, Report of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 
15-19 July 1963, p. 107. Second quote from Lesson Plan 6062, Infantry School, 1962, 
Fundamentals of Counterguerrilla Operations, p. 27. 

94 First quote from Infantry School, Military Operations Against Irregular Forces, 
1962, p. 38, and see also pp. 21, 37-38, 68-69. Second and third quotes from Lesson 
Plan 6405, SWS, 1964, p. LP-28, and see also pp. LP-29 to 36. Infantry School, Report 
of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 15-19 July 1963, p. 126; Counterinsurgency III, 
Infantry Career Subcourse 497, Infantry School, Apr 65, p. 71. 

95 Advance Sheet 6063, 6064, Infantry School, Fundamentals of Counterinsurgency 
Operations, 1962; Infantry School, Report of the Infantry Instructors’ Conference, 
15-19 July 1963, pp. 38-39, 110; POI 7-A-C22, Infantry School 1963, Infantry Officer 
Career Course; Thomas Block, “Quick Fire,” Infantry 54 (January-February 1964): 
18-19; Infantry School, Infantry Instructors’ Workshop, Report of Conference, 17-20 
August 1965, pp. 59-60; Historical Supplement, 1965, U.S. Army Infantry School, 

1966, pp. 8, 11-12, 17-18, 22-23. 


287 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


96 Lesson Plan 4112-3/2, CGSC, 1961-1962, pp. LP-III-2, LP-III-3; Briefing, 
CGSC, Oct 65, sub: Committee II (Training), President’s Review of Counterinsurgency, 
pp. D-l, D-5, N-13423.355-B-3, CARL; Eddleman, “Report of Educational 
Survey Commission,” pp. 12, 55-57; Memo, Hamilton for Marr, 31 Aug 64, sub: 
Counterinsurgency Courses; Lesson Plans R2310/5, CGSC, 1964-1965; M 2300-1, 
CGSC, 1964-1965, p. Ll-AS-1-2, and see also p. Ll-AS-1-4; M2300-3, CGSC, 1964- 
1965; R2310-1, CGSC, Combined Operations in Tropical Africa Counterinsurgency, 
1962-1963; R5170, CGSC, Corps Operations in Tropical Africa, 1964-1965; 4112-3/2, 
CGSC, 1961-1962, p. LP-III-17; M2300-1 and M2300-2, CGSC, Introduction to 
Unconventional Warfare and Counterinsurgency Operations—Operations Against 
Irregular Forces, 1962-1963; and A2300, CGSC, 1964-1965. 

97 AWC, U.S. Army War College Curriculum Coverage of Counterinsurgency, 1961- 
62, 1962; AWC, AWC Curriculum Pamphlet, 1962-63, pp. 8-11; AWC, U.S. Army War 
College Curriculum Coverage of Counterinsurgency, 1962-63, p. 22; Memo, Col R. 
Dalrymple, c. 1963, sub: Counterinsurgency Education, p. 2, Industrial College of the 
Armed Forces, Military Education Coordination Conference, tab G, box II-C-I, Service 
War Colleges Annual Meetings, 1961-63. All in AWC Curricular Archives, MHI. 

98 AWC, AWC Curriculum Pamphlet for 1963-64, pp. 11, 16; AWC, AWC Curriculum 
Pamphlet for 1964-65, p. 8; AWC, AWC Curriculum Pamphlet for 1965-66, pp. 10-11; 
AWC, Positions for the Department of the Army Board to Review Army Officers 
Schools, 21 Sep 65, pp. 21-24, 53. All in AWC Curricular Archives, MHI. 

99 Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” p. 121; CONARC, CONARC World Wide 
Combat Arms Conference II, vol. 3, 25-29 Jun 62, pp. 201-02; Sheehan, “Preparing for 
an Imaginary War?” p. 293. 

100 William Rosson, “Accent on Cold War Capabilities,” Army Information Digest 
17 (May 1962): 5; Memo, DCSOPS for Dir, Joint Staff, 28 Jul 61, sub: Status of 
Development of Counter Guerrilla Forces; Heath Twichell, Counter Guerrilla Warfare 
Training (Student paper, Infantry School, 1961), p. 2. 

1(11 Quote from Stanton Smith, Counterinsurgency Training for the Infantry Platoon 
Leader (Student paper, Infantry School, 1961), p. 1, and see also p. 2. CONARC, Annex 
N to USCONARC Training Directive, Counter Guerrilla Training, 30 Sep 61, Historians 
files, CMH; Memo, Maj Gen John L. Throckmorton, SGS, for Dep CSs et al., 21 Nov 
61, sub: Special Warfare Activities, Historians files, CMH; Bowman, “Evolution of 
Army Doctrine,” pp. 92, 179; Army Training Programs, Training Tests and Subject 
Schedules To Be Published or Revised To Increase Emphasis on Counterguerrilla 
Warfare Training, 28 Jul 61, Incl 4 to Memo, DCSOPS for Dir, Joint Staff, 28 Jul 61, 
sub: Status of Development of Counter Guerrilla Forces; ATP 7-18-1, Rifle Company, 
Infantry, Airborne and Mechanized Infantry Battalions, Dec 61. 

Boyd, Infantry Officer Course, an. A; Norman and Spore, “Big Push,” p. 28; 
Schultz, Guerrilla Warfare, p. 105; Rpt, CONARC, 28 Jan 62, sub: Special Warfare 
Board, Final Report, pp. 19-20. 

103 CONARC, Annex N to USCONARC Training Directive, Counterinsurgency/ 
Counterguerrilla Warfare Training, 30 Mar 62, pp. N-4, N-5, N-IV-1; FM 31-22, U.S. 
Army Counterinsurgency Forces, 1963, pp. 87-92; Memo, CONARC for CG, 3d Army, 
17 Apr 62, sub: Counterguerrilla Warfare Training, N-l 8668.39, CARL; Rpt, HQDA, 
U.S. Army Special Warfare Study and Program, FY 63-68, 1962, an. V; Memo, Lt Gen 
Barksdale Hamlett, DCSOPS, for CG, CONARC, c. Mar 62, sub: U.S. Continental 
Army Command Special Warfare Board, with atch, Historians files, CMH. 


288 


The Counterinsurgency Ferment, 1961-1965 


David Pemberton, Battalion Counterguerrilla/Insurgency Training for Specific 
World Areas (Annex A) (Student paper. Infantry School, 1962), p. 1; Wilford Warren, 
Antiguerrilla Operations (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1961); J. A. Wallace, 
“Counterinsurgency ATT,” Army 16 (August 1966): 76-77; Ben Walton, Army Training 
Program To Train the Infantry Company for Both Conventional and Unconventional 
Combat (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1962). 

Richard Scott, Training of the Junior Leader for Counter Guerrilla Warfare 
(Student paper. Infantry School, 1962), an. B; William Olds, Predeployment Training 
of B Company, 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade (Sep) on Okinawa 
During the Period February Through April 1965 (Personal Experience of a Platoon 
Leader) (Student paper. Infantry School, 1965), p. 23; Smith, Counterinsurgency 
Training, an. D; Rpt, JCS, n.d., sub: Development Status of Military Counterinsurgency 
Programs, Including Counterguerrilla Forces, as of 1 August 1965, p. IV-16; Flarry 
Trigg, “A New ATT,” Army 13 (February 1963): 35-39. 

106 Memo, CINCPAC for JCS, 4 May 62, sub: Status of Development of Counter- 
Guerrilla Forces, p. 15, Historians files, CMH. 

107 Rpt, HQDA, U.S. Army Special Warfare Study and Program, FY 63-68, 1962, 
p. 70; CONARC Pam 515-2, Counterinsurgency, 1962; CONARC Pam 516-2, 
Counterinsurgency Operations, Counterinsurgency—An Orientation for Basic and 
Advanced Trainees, 1963. 

" ,s CONARC, CONARC World Wide Combat Arms Conference II, vol. 3, 25-29 Jun 
62, pp. 199, 202-03; Rpt, JCS, sub: Development Status of Military Counterinsurgency 
Programs, Including Counterguerrilla Forces, as of 1 August 1963, p. IV-7; “USCONARC 
Uses Viet Nam Lessons in Counterinsurgency,” Army Reservist 8 (November 1962): 11; 
CONARC, Appendix VII to Annex of CONARC Training Directive, Nov 62. 

109 CONARC, Annex N to USCONARC Training Directive, Counter Guerrilla 
Warfare Training, 22 Apr 64; Army Regulation (AR) 220-55, Field Organizations, 
Field and Command Post Exercises, 18 Jun 64, p. 3; Memo, CONARC for Distribution, 
26 Aug 63, sub: Revised Infantry AIT Program, Historians files, CMH; Ltr, Maj Gen 
Hugh M. Exton, Dep CS for Unit Training and Readiness, CONARC, to ACSFOR, 3 
Oct 63, sub: Mandatory Training Requirements, and Fact Sheet, 5 Feb 64, sub: Training 
Subjects and the Extent of Their Impact on Total Available Training Time, both in 
71A2333, CONARC, RG 338, NARA; Rpt, CONARC, Mar 63, sub: Army Training 
Center Conference, 71A1562, CONARC, RG 338, NARA. 

110 Quote from FM 21-73, Combat Training of the Individual Soldier and 
Patrolling , 1962, p. 113. CONARC Pam 515-3, Counterinsurgency, Counterinsurgency 
Instructional/Training Material, 1962; FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 
1961, pp. 46^47; FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 105, 112-16. 

Infantry School, Ranger Training, 1961, pp. 12, 34, 73, 116 ; Hogan, Raiders or 
Elite Infantry, pp. 147-48, 156-57; Historical Supplement, 1965, U.S. Army Infantry 
School, 1966, pp. 9-10; Rpt, JCS 1969/212, 1 Jun 61, sub: Status of Development of 
Counterguerrilla Forces, p. 1870. 

112 25th Inf Div, Clear and Hold Operations, an. E, Army Troop Test ROAD Brigade 
in Counterinsurgency Operations, 1965, pp. E-2 to E-4, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, 
HQDA, U.S. Army Special Warfare Study and Program, FY 63-68, 1962, an. V; Scott, 
Training of the Junior Leader, an. B. For examples of training, see Rpt, JCS 1969/330, 
9 Apr 62, sub: Status of Development of Counterguerrilla Forces, pp. 37-39; “Exercise 
Swamp Fox,” Infantry 54 ( May-June 1964): 50-51; Bruce Palmer, Jr., and Roy Flint, 


289 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


“Counter-Insurgency Training,” Army 12 (June 1962): 32-39; Memo, Lt Col A. Aakkula 
for Commandant, CGSC, 24 May 62, sub: Trip Report, Yakima Washington (Exercise 
Mesa Drive), p. 8. After Action Reports (AARs), Exercise Mesa Drive, Jun 62, p. 22; 
Exercise Sherwood Forest, 32d Inf Div, 17 Jul 62, pp. 26-27, and see also pp. 3^1, 
25-28, 43^14; and Exercise Seneca Spear, 2d Inf Div, 1962, pp. 1, 5, 14-15. Last three 
at MHI. Annual Hist Sums, 1st Bn, 8th Inf, 1964 and 1965; Memo, 4th Inf Div for CG, 
6th Army, 6 Nov 64, sub: Exercise Eastwind, 71A3439, RG 338, NARA. 

113 Quote from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations , 1963, p. 116. 25th Inf Div, 
Clear and Hold Operations, an. E, Army Troop Test ROAD Brigade in Counterinsurgency 
Operations, 1965, pp. E-2 to E-4; Richard Terry, Guerrilla Warfare in Army Maneuvers 
(Student paper. Infantry School, 1961). 

114 Quote from 25th Inf Div, Twenty-fifth Division Jungle and Guerrilla Warfare 
Training Center, 1962, n.p., CARL. Ernest Easterbrook, “Realism in Counterinsurgency 
Training ” Army Information Digest 17 (October 1962): 12-21; 25th Inf Div, Training 
Memo 9, Brigade Jungle Exercise 10-23 January 1962, 29 Dec 61, 17526.59A, 
CARL. 

115 Quote from James Rast, “Highland Fox: The 2d Division’s Off-Post 
Counterinsurgency Exercise,” Infantry 55 (May-June 1965): 49. Erik Villard, “Guerrillas 
in the Mist: 4th Division Counterinsurgency Training Exercises in the Olympic National 
Forest, 1963-65,” paper presented at American Military Experience in Asia Conference, 
Madison, Wise., Oct 98, pp. 5, 12, Historians files, CMH; Annual Hist Sum, 4th Inf Div, 
1963, pp. 10-12, CMH; Jean Moenk, A History of Large-Scale Maneuvers in the United 
States, 1935-1964 (Fort Monroe, Va.: Historical Branch, HQ, CONARC, 1969), p. 289; 
Joint Exercise Coulee Crest, Final Report, 30 April-20 May 1963, p. 10, MHI; Hal 
Lyon, “If the Cause Is Right,” Infantry 54 (March-April 1964): 52-53. 

116 First quote from Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, Md.: 
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 31. Second quote from Barber and Ronning, 
Internal Security , p. 81. 

117 Bowman, “Evolution of Army Doctrine,” p. 125; Doughty, Army Tactical 
Doctrine , p. 29. 

" N Memo, CDC Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group for Chief of Staff, CDC, 
18 Oct 65, sub: National Counterinsurgency Review, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA; 
Maxwell Taylor, “The U.S. Government and Counterinsurgency,” AWC lecture, 11 
Jan 66, p. 8, MHI; Rpt, Counterinsurgency Review Board, 1 Dec 65, sub: Report 
of Committee II (Training), Counterinsurgency Review Board, 1 December 1965, 
Counterinsurgency Training in U.S. Government Agencies, pp. II-1 to II-9, A-3 to A- 
9, A-18, A-21, Maxwell D. Taylor Papers, National Defense University, Fort McNair, 
Washington, D.C. 


290 


7 


Putting Doctrine to the Test 
The Advisory Experience 
1955-1975 


During the third quarter of the twentieth century, the U.S. Army 
helped dozens of countries combat subversive movements. With the 
exception of South Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, Laos, the Army 
confined its activities to providing materiel and advice. Although U.S. 
soldiers often found the task of working through others frustrating, they 
could claim a considerable measure of success, for during this period 
not a single U.S. ally—again with the exceptions of South Vietnam, 
Laos, and Cambodia—fell to Communist insurgents. The experience 
gave the Army ample opportunity to test its counterinsurgency and 
nation-building doctrines. 1 

The Latin American Experience 

Although the battle against communism was global, Latin America 
was a prime area of U.S. concern. In 1959 Fidel Castro, a rebel who 
later proved to be a Communist, overthrew a weak dictatorship in Cuba. 
Stung by a Communist triumph so close to home and concerned that 
Castro might make good on his pledge to spread the revolutionary virus 
to the rest of the hemisphere, President Eisenhower initiated a coun¬ 
terinsurgency program for Latin America. Reflecting the traditional 
notion that socioeconomic distress provided the breeding ground for 
Communist agitation, Eisenhower allocated S500 million in 1960 to 
promote improvements in health, education, and agrarian conditions 


291 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


throughout Latin America. He attempted to supplement these civil pro¬ 
grams with $96.5 million in military assistance, but Congress rejected 
the military aid package. Latin American militaries had a long history 
of antidemocratic behavior, and Congress was loath to strengthen their 
coercive powers. 2 

When Kennedy succeeded Eisenhower in January 1961, he shared 
Eisenhower’s and Castro’s belief that Latin America was ripe for revo¬ 
lution. The new administration also believed the region was ready to 
participate in Rostow’s takeoff toward modernization. Consequently, 
Kennedy followed Eisenhower’s lead in seeking political and economic, 
rather than military, solutions to the problem of regional instabil¬ 
ity. In August 1961 representatives of the United States and nineteen 
Latin American countries signed the Charter of Punta del Este, which 
launched an ambitious hemispheric initiative called the Alliance for 
Progress. The plan committed the signatories to investing $100 billion 
in development projects over the next ten years, with $20 billion com¬ 
ing from the United States. The charter established specific goals in the 
areas of economic growth, health, housing, and literacy. It also sought 
to promote land reform, social justice, and democracy. In short, the 
Alliance for Progress was a kind of Marshall Plan, a highly ambitious 
program of economic growth and social engineering founded on a faith 
in the ability of centralized planners and enlightened experts to remold 
a continent. Certain of the outcome, the U.S. government confidently 
predicted that the 1960s would be a “historic decade of democratic 
progress.” 3 (Map 10) 

During the ten-year life of the Alliance for Progress the United 
States dedicated roughly 92 percent of the aid it gave Latin America to 
economic programs. Yet, like Eisenhower, Kennedy also believed that 
military assistance had a positive role to play, and he urged legislators 
to rescind the ban on providing internal security assistance to Latin 
America. As Secretary of Defense McNamara explained, “the essential 
role of the Latin American military as a stabilizing force outweighs 
any risks involved in providing military assistance for internal security 
purposes.” The administration found support for its position from a 
growing number of academics led by Samuel P. Huntington, Morris 
Janowitz, and John L. Johnson, who asserted that military establish¬ 
ments were prime vehicles for promoting modernization in third world 
societies. Armed with such arguments, Kennedy succeeded in persuad¬ 
ing Congress to allow the Pentagon to provide counterinsurgency train¬ 
ing and equipment to Latin America. 4 

In November 1961 the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave President Kennedy 
twenty-seven recommendations on how the U.S. military could support 


292 


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Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the Alliance for Progress, twenty-three of which had been put forth 
by the Army. The thrust of the Army’s plan was to expand military, 
police, psychological, and intelligence assistance while simultaneously 
encouraging Latin American militaries to undertake significant civic 
action programs. The Army also hoped to promote democratic and 
constitutional behavior on the part of area militaries by bringing young 
officers to the United States where they could observe how a modern, 
professional, apolitical military organization functioned in a democ¬ 
racy. Kennedy enthusiastically endorsed the proposals, directing that 
the Pentagon implement them on an accelerated basis." 

Not everyone was sanguine about the shift in U.S. policy. Many 
civilians doubted the wisdom of strengthening the repressive powers 
of Latin American governments, while the Agency for International 
Development resented the infusion of military considerations into 
developmental matters. The Pentagon’s Director of Military Assistance, 
General Williston B. Palmer, also had reservations. He openly chal¬ 
lenged the idea that the U.S. military should attempt to indoctrinate 
foreign soldiers in democracy, economics, or even civic action. He 
argued that such matters were beyond the Army’s professional compe¬ 
tence and would merely expose it to charges of meddling in politics. 
McNamara dismissed such reservations, yet in practice the military aid 
program limited political training to civic action issues in deference to 
foreign governments that objected to potential U.S. interference in their 
domestic affairs. 6 

Although Latin America enthusiastically embraced the Alliance 
for Progress, U.S. officials were frustrated by the fact that many area 
governments seemed ambivalent about the threat of Communist sub¬ 
version. Latin American skepticism, however, was not unwarranted. 
True, unrest existed in various forms and active insurgencies existed in 
about a dozen Latin American states. But in evaluating these threats, 
Americans often underestimated the institutional strengths of area 
governments and the many social, political, and cultural barriers to 
revolutionary change. 

Fortunately for U.S. interests, many Latin American revolutionaries 
also underestimated these barriers. Inspired by the apparent ease with 
which Castro had overthrown an unpopular and inept Cuban govern¬ 
ment, many revolutionaries adopted unrealistic expectations about their 
ability to duplicate Castro’s accomplishment. Their misapprehension 
was fueled by the Cubans themselves, most notably Castro’s lieuten¬ 
ant, Che Guevara. Guevara’s 1960 book On Guerrilla Warfare asserted 
that a small military cell, or foco, could spark a wider revolution with¬ 
out waiting for optimum political conditions. His foco theory, which 


294 



American and Ecuadorian engineers discuss a road-building project in 
1962 as part of the Alliance for Progress; below, Ecuadorian villagers 
try out a new water pump built for them by U.S. Army and Ecuadorian 

Army engineers. 








Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


received further amplification and dissemination throughout Latin 
America thanks to the literary efforts of the French Communist Regis 
Debray, maintained that area Communists could jump-start the revolu¬ 
tionary process by moving directly into guerrilla warfare without first 
engaging in the long and arduous task of building party organizations 
and mobilizing public support. By subordinating the party and politi¬ 
cal considerations to military action, the foco theory essentially stood 
Marxist-Leninist theory on its head. 

Latin American leftists formed approximately two dozen foco -type 
movements during the 1960s. In practice, the theory proved unwork¬ 
able. Undertaking military action without having first mobilized at least 
a portion of the population exposed insurgents to military countermea¬ 
sures when they were relatively weak. Compounding the tenuousness 
of the guerrillas’ links to the people was the fact that many insurgent 
leaders were urbanites who were neither acclimated to the hardships 
of campaign life nor attuned to the needs, aspirations, and character 
of the rural population. More at home in university classrooms and 
smoky cafes than in the bush, Latin American guerrilla leaders were 
particularly prone to endless squabbles over ideology, strategy, and 
personality that badly fractured their movements. Consequently, most 
insurgent groups fielded no more than a few hundred guerrillas, and 
not one came remotely close to success. The futility of the foco method 
was finally demonstrated in 1967, when Che himself was killed in a 
farcical attempt to spark a revolution in Bolivia. 7 

Che’s demise marked a turning point in the nature of Latin 
American insurgency. External support for Latin American revo¬ 
lutionaries began to fade as first the Soviet Union and then Cuba 
progressively disassociated themselves from the region’s floundering 
insurgent movements. Moreover, while a few focos sputtered on into 
the 1970s, the Latin Americans themselves began to change their 
tactics. Some, disheartened by their failure to rouse the countryside, 
returned to the cities where they resorted to a new form of revolu¬ 
tionary warfare, urban terrorism. Guided by the writings of Abraham 
Guillen and Carlos Marighella, a new breed of radicals attempted to 
keep the revolutionary dream alive through assassinations, bombings, 
kidnappings, and robberies. These urban focos enjoyed some success, 
but by the early 1970s they too had largely collapsed, partly because 
their terroristic acts alienated local populations and partly because the 
urban focoists were frequently no more interested in long-term politi¬ 
cal work than their rural cousins had been.* 

More successful than the urban terrorists were a few groups that 
ultimately rejected all forms of focoism in favor of a more balanced 


296 



Nicaraguan soldiers take part in a U.S.-assisted urban 
counterterrorism exercise in 1969; below, a U.S. Army adviser (center) 
observes Guatemalan soldiers practice riot control techniques. 









Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


politico-military approach. These movements ultimately posed the great¬ 
est challenge to Latin American counterinsurgents, and in 1979 they pro¬ 
duced the only successful Marxist insurgency in Latin America outside 
of Cuba—Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution. Such movements were still 
in their infancy during the period covered by this book, however, and did 
not pose serious threats to most states. Indeed, the Sandinista Revolution, 
like the Cuban, proved to be the exception rather than the rule. By the end 
of the twentieth century no other Latin American country had fallen to a 
Marxist-Maoist assault, while the Sandinista regime itself had given way 
to a democratic government. 

The languid performance of most Latin American revolutionaries 
notwithstanding, they still created significant problems in the 1960s and 
early 1970s, most notably in Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela, Brazil, 
Uruguay, and Peru. They could have proved much more dangerous 
but for the countervailing effect of U.S. security assistance. Between 
1950 and 1975, the United States trained over 28,000 Latin American 
military personnel in the United States and at the U.S. Army School of 
the Americas in the Panama Canal Zone. The latter school was espe¬ 
cially important, as it eventually dedicated approximately 70 percent 
of its Spanish-based curriculum to counterinsurgency-related subjects. 
Meanwhile, the Agency for International Development trained several 
thousand Latin American police officers either in the Canal Zone or 
at the International Police Academy in Washington, D.C., while the 
CIA provided intelligence assistance. The U.S. Army complemented 
these efforts through a small number of military advisers backed over 
the years by several hundred mobile training teams, many of whose 
members were drawn from the Canal Zone-based 8th Special Forces 
Group that formed the nucleus of the Army’s Latin American Special 
Action Force. 9 

The advice proffered by U.S. soldiers during the 1960s and 1970s 
closely followed the precepts laid out in U.S. manuals, many of which 
the Army translated into Spanish. Army advisers urged area govern¬ 
ments to develop cogent politico-military plans that attacked both the 
guerrillas in the field and the socioeconomic conditions that spawned 
them. They also recommended the establishment of bureaucratic 
mechanisms to better coordinate and integrate the efforts of various 
government agencies. Included among such devices were joint coor¬ 
dination centers that orchestrated the activities of police, military, and 
intelligence agencies. First introduced in Venezuela by an Army train¬ 
ing team, the joint center concept proved so successful that the United 
States created a demonstration unit that marketed the idea to several 
other countries. 10 


298 



The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


Representative of America’s approach to Latin American insur¬ 
gency were the programs the United States developed to counter 
instability in Colombia. In 1959 President Eisenhower responded 
to an epidemic of social and political violence in Colombia by 
dispatching a special mission to that troubled nation. The mis¬ 
sion recommended that the Colombian government initiate the full 
panoply of U.S. Army counterinsurgency measures, from increased 
psychological, civil affairs, and intelligence activities to intensified 
counterguerrilla training. It likewise suggested an array of programs 
to restore public trust in the government by reducing corruption, 
improving troop conduct, and enhancing government services. Based 
on these recommendations, the Colombian government revamped its 
counterinsurgency effort, initiating economic reforms and instituting 
a Council of National Defense that coordinated the activities of the 
military high command with those civilian ministries charged with 
promoting economic development and social order. Still, many short¬ 
comings remained, and in 1962 the United States provided additional 
recommendations, first through a special study group led by General 
Yarborough, and later by a two-man Special Forces team that helped 
the Colombian military craft a comprehensive three-year program 
called Plan Lazo." 

The Lazo plan closely followed the precepts of Army counterinsur¬ 
gency doctrine. It called for tightened command and control over all 
public security forces to ensure unified action, expanded psychological 
and civic action activities to win popular support, and improved intelli¬ 
gence operations to ferret out the guerrillas and their clandestine agents 
amid the people. To facilitate this last objective, the Colombian Army 
created networks of paid informants and offered rewards for informa¬ 
tion. It also established mobile intelligence groups that integrated 
military, police, and civilian intelligence activities at the local level and 
special hunter-killer teams that exploited the correlated information to 
kill or capture insurgent leaders. 

True to U.S. Army doctrine, Plan Lazo assigned Colombian infan¬ 
try brigades to geographical zones with the mission of clearing those 
areas of an insurgent presence. Operating out of widely scattered 
bases, small infantry units were to scour the countryside day and night 
to keep the guerrillas on the run. Once one of these patrols had located 
an irregular unit, Plan Lazo called for unrelenting pursuit to capture 
or destroy the enemy, most likely by some form of encirclement. 
To facilitate the execution of such highly dispersed yet aggressive 
actions, the advisory mission pledged to help improve the Colombian 
military’s performance, most notably through the provision of 


299 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


communications gear and vehicular transport, including twelve heli¬ 
copters. Meanwhile, rigorous population- and resource-control mea¬ 
sures, sweetened by civic action programs, would facilitate the return of 
government authority to unruly regions. Helping to solidify these gains 
would be newly raised police and paramilitary formations whose pres¬ 
ence would both enhance local security and free the regular forces for 
additional offensive operations. A series of U.S.-funded radio networks 
that linked farms and villages to military reaction forces rounded out 
the local security system. Though by no means perfect, the Lazo plan 
provided Colombia with its comprehensive blueprint for an integrated 
counterinsurgency campaign. By 1965 Colombia had greatly reduced 
the amount of territory controlled by antigovernment forces. 12 

Not every country received as detailed assistance as Colombia, but 
throughout the hemisphere U.S. Army advice was generally cut from 
the same cloth—aggressive, light infantry operations to hunt the guer¬ 
rillas, paramilitary formations to protect and control the population, 
and intelligence, propaganda, and civic action measures to solidify 
government gains. Guatemala applied such a formula to defeat leftist 
guerrillas in the mid-1960s, while Peru successfully destroyed several 
guerrilla base areas in 1965 by employing a series of phased encircle¬ 
ments reminiscent of those conducted in Greece and Korea. The U.S. 
Army helped these and other nations develop a variety of special coun¬ 
terguerrilla formations that frequently spearheaded operations. One 
such unit, a Bolivian ranger battalion, earned the distinction of killing 
Che Guevara. Conversely, large-unit, conventional operations; heavy 
artillery concentrations; and ponderous, road-bound formations played 
little part in the Army’s program for Latin America. 13 

While American-style counterinsurgency methods succeeded in 
keeping the hemisphere’s rural insurgents at bay, both the Americans 
and their allies were unprepared to meet the shift to urban terrorism 
that occurred in the later 1960s. Although the Army had procedures for 
conducting combat, riot control, and cordon-and-search operations in 
urban environments, U.S. doctrine had largely mirrored Maoist revolu¬ 
tionary thought by focusing on the countryside rather than the cities. 
The criminal nature of urban insurgency, however, did not lend itself 
to a military solution. Consequently, assistance in this area focused on 
intelligence and police operations—areas that fell more under AID’s 
Office of Public Safety and the CIA than the Army. 14 

Although several Latin American countries had developed civic 
action concepts independently of the United States, America’s strong 
endorsement of civic action proved influential in persuading them 
to expand such programs. Guatemala was the first Latin American 


300 




The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 



A U.S. Army Special Forces adviser discusses tactics with Bolivian troops 
prior to a counterguerrilla operation in 1967. 


nation to accept a U.S. Army civic action advisory team in 1960, with 
a full-time civic action adviser following in 1962. During the 1960s 
civic action programs accounted for nearly a quarter of U.S. military 
aid to Guatemala, and U.S. influence over the program was strong. 
Guatemala’s leading counterinsurgency commander, Col. Carlos Arana 
Osorio, attributed 70 percent of his success to civic action programs 
that purportedly won the allegiance of local peasants by building roads 
and feeding school children hot lunches. 15 

News of the Guatemalan program spread rapidly through the hemi¬ 
sphere, but not until the United States agreed to pay the majority of the 
bills did the Latin American states show any real enthusiasm for enroll¬ 
ing in U.S. civic action programs. By 1965 thirteen Latin American 
countries sported U.S.-funded civic action projects. In Ecuador U.S. 
Army engineers helped supervise the construction of farm-to-market 
roads. In Bolivia U.S.-financed engineer battalions built dozens of 
schools, while in Colombia the military established health clinics. 
Across the length and breadth of the continent, armies cleared jungles, 
installed sewage systems, and inoculated children. In addition to help¬ 
ing to plan, provision, and execute such undertakings, the U.S. Army 
distributed thousands of pamphlets describing improved agricultural 
and health techniques. Advisory missions complemented these good 
works by encouraging indigenous soldiers to treat civilians in a courte¬ 
ous manner. 16 


301 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Armed with reams of statistics about the number of pamphlets 
distributed, roads built, and teeth cleaned, U.S. Army officials in the 
early 1960s concluded that the civic action program in Latin America 
had “unquestionably been successful.” In fact, the situation was murky. 
Much good had been achieved, but the resources applied paled in 
comparison with the hemisphere’s socioeconomic ills. Confusion and 
disagreement over whether civic action projects should be substantive 
or mere palliatives of a temporary and largely propagandistic nature 
divided administrators and defused the program’s impact. Some AID 
officials disdained military participation in developmental activities 
and hindered the effort, while budgeting impediments and a shortage of 
language-qualified specialists hampered effective execution. 17 

Problems on the American side were matched by shortcomings in 
the recipient nations. Corruption and mismanagement plagued the exe¬ 
cution of programs throughout the hemisphere. Moreover, U.S. advis¬ 
ers quickly learned that while giving a foreign soldier a bulldozer and 
having him build a road with it was fairly easy, changing the way the 
soldier thought and acted was much more difficult. American protesta¬ 
tions notwithstanding, many area military and police establishments 
insisted on employing torture, terror, and brutality to suppress politi¬ 
cal and social unrest. The situation actually worsened as the decade 
progressed, as countries responded to the rise of urban terrorism with 
terror campaigns of their own. One of the ironies of the period was that 
Guatemala, which had won acclaim from U.S. officials for its pioneer¬ 
ing civic action program, also amassed one of the region’s worst records 
on human rights. 18 

Even when the philosophy of civic action was taken to heart, it 
sometimes had unforeseen consequences. The most notable example of 
this occurred in Peru, where military officers who were genuinely com¬ 
mitted to civic action precepts overthrew the civilian government on the 
grounds that the military was the only institution in Peruvian society 
with the moral virtues and organizational skills capable of enacting 
reforms. Other Latin American soldiers less sincere in their devotion 
to civic action adopted similar justifications for meddling in domestic 
politics, with the result that what had initially been billed as a “historic 
decade of democratic progress” ended up being an era of heightened 
military activism in regional politics. Between 1962 and 1973 no fewer 
than sixteen coups rocked Latin America, and by 1974 more than half 
of all Latin American countries were under military rule. 

The wave of coups that swept the Western hemisphere was not the 
product of U.S. internal security doctrine. Ultimately, indigenous fac¬ 
tors played a far more important role in shaping the course of Latin 


302 



A U.S. Army adviser (second from left) accompanies El Salvadoran 
Army medics on a medical civic action initiative; below, an American 
soldier distributes propaganda in comic book form to Bolivian 

children in 1966. 












Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


America’s political development during the 1960s and 1970s than a few 
hours of counterinsurgency instruction at the School of the Americas. 
Nevertheless, U.S. military assistance clearly had not prevented area 
militaries from adopting unpalatable practices. This fact, when combined 
with the aforementioned difficulties experienced in the civic action 
program, led an independent study group commissioned by the Army 
in 1970 to conclude that “there are no records of specific achievement 
of any one of the objectives of the Alliance for Progress by the Latin 
American armed forces through civic action or other programs.” 14 

The study group’s findings were undoubtedly disappointing to the 
Army, yet they should not have been surprising, for the Alliance for 
Progress also fell far short of its goals. Ten years and tens of billions of 
dollars worth of aid and investment had not yielded the results that U.S. 
social engineers had so confidently predicted would occur. True, most 
Latin American economies had grown, life expectancy had increased, 
and many other positive achievements had been recorded. Yet little or 
no change had taken place in the overall structure of Latin America’s 
troubled socioeconomic and political systems. For the most part the 
problems that might spark unrest—poverty, social immobility, racial 
and ethnic prejudice, unrepresentative government, corruption, and 
oppression—continued to flourish throughout the hemisphere. 

The failure of the Alliance of Progress and its military compo¬ 
nent—-civic action—to remedy Latin America’s many social and politi¬ 
cal ills muddied the doctrinal assertion that an insurgency could not be 
defeated without development and reform. From one point of view, the 
experience had validated this tenet, for the failure of area governments 
to redress the underlying causes of discontent meant that unrest would 
continue to percolate throughout Latin America for years to come. Yet 
the fact that Latin American governments had succeeded in quash¬ 
ing one guerrilla movement after another without making significant 
structural changes indicated that some counterinsurgency theorists had 
gone too far in their assertions about the necessity of winning hearts 
and minds. While reform was desirable and coercion only dealt with the 
symptoms of a deeper social disease, the fact was that coercion could 
indeed achieve the immediate goals of the counterinsurgent. 20 

Advice and Support in Vietnam 

Although keeping the Western hemisphere free of communism was 
a primary goal of American foreign policy, Latin America was a rela¬ 
tive backwater for the U.S. Army compared to Southeast Asia. Here the 
United States expended vast sums in a futile effort to stop Communist 


304 






The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


insurgents in three countries—South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 
The Army’s involvement in each of these wars varied greatly, but 
nowhere in Southeast Asia—or the world, for that matter—did the 
United States expend more blood and treasure in the name of counter¬ 
insurgency than in the ill-starred state of South Vietnam. 

South Vietnam was the product of the 1954 Geneva Accords that 
terminated the Indochina War. The accords had split Vietnam along the 
17th Parallel into a Communist-controlled north and non-Communist 
south. The partition was meant to be temporary pending a vote on 
reunification, but the elections were never held. Instead, what emerged 
were two sovereign, antithetical states. 

After a few years of relative peace, Viet Minh agents, dubbed Viet 
Cong by South Vietnamese authorities, initiated an insurgency designed 
to bring down the southern government and reunify the country under 
Communist rule. Building upon the teachings of Mao Tse-tung as well 
as their own experiences in the French Indochina War, the Viet Cong 
created a parallel government, or infrastructure, that exercised de facto 
control over large areas of rural South Vietnam. Through this organiza¬ 
tion, the Viet Cong intimidated opponents, collected taxes, and raised 
recruits for guerrilla bands that over the course of several years matured 
into a three-tiered system of hamlet militias, regional guerrilla units, 
and quasi-regular “main force” battalions, regiments, and divisions. 
Together, these forces waged an enervating war of terror, raid, and 
ambush that severely challenged the southern government’s control 
over the countryside. North Vietnam directed the effort, providing cad¬ 
res, supplies, and eventually soldiers that it infiltrated into the South 
through Laos and Cambodia, weak neutral states that offered ready 
sanctuaries for Communist forces. 

President Ngo Dinh Diem’s Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) 
was poorly positioned to parry the threat. Years of colonial domination 
had bequeathed it a languid economy and a weak administrative sys¬ 
tem that barely extended into the countryside. Unlike the Communists, 
whose highly motivated, locally recruited cadres lived and worked 
among the people, South Vietnam was dominated by men drawn from 
the country’s urban and educated classes who often had little sympathy 
for the peasantry and generally opposed any reforms that might under¬ 
mine their power. Instead, corruption, nepotism, and inefficiency ham¬ 
pered the government, while deep social, ethnic, and religious fissures 
plagued the countryside. 21 (Map 11) 

Overcoming these obstacles was a daunting task, but over the years 
Diem succeeded in creating a personal political machine that held his 
rivals in check. With the help of American largess, Diem kept South 


305 






Map 11 









The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


Vietnam afloat and even managed to initiate a few reforms, including a 
modest land redistribution initiative. Meanwhile, he moved to destroy 
Communist influence in the countryside. He replaced local officials 
with government appointees, established pao chia -style neighborhood 
watch and reporting systems, relocated populations, and hunted down 
Communist cadres with a special intelligence organization that used 
torture to achieve its ends. 22 

Diem’s state-building efforts scored some successes during the mid- 
1950s. Yet they fell far short of effecting permanent change. Likewise, 
Diem s occasional use of Draconian measures, when combined with his 
imposition of officials chosen for their loyalty rather than their talent, 
alienated the very people over whom he was trying to gain control. 

If the regime’s bungling retarded the nation-building process, so too 
did the Viet Cong, who worked assiduously to thwart the government 
at every turn. Communist agitators and spies penetrated virtually every 
town, hamlet, and government agency in South Vietnam. When they 
could not achieve their ends peacefully, they did not hesitate to kidnap 
or kill anyone who stood in their way. By 1961 the Viet Cong had assas¬ 
sinated thousands of people and forced the government to abandon over 
600 rural schools, thereby stripping the fledgling regime of what little 
presence it had in the countryside. Meanwhile, thanks to its ability to 
inspire and intimidate the rural population, the Viet Cong gradually 
escalated its terror campaign to include attacks on isolated garrisons, 
military convoys, and pro-government villages. In 1959 the Communist 
Party of Vietnam formally initiated the second, or guerrilla, phase of 
its Maoist-style insurgency, and, by the time of Kennedy’s election in 
November 1960, South Vietnam’s security forces were beginning to 
crack under the strain of an accelerating guerrilla campaign. 23 

The job of pacifying the countryside fell to the security forces 
Diem had inherited from the French, an assortment of military and 
paramilitary organizations bereft of any overarching command or 
administrative structure. With the French rapidly phasing out their pres¬ 
ence in Vietnam following the Geneva Accords, Eisenhower decided 
to undertake the job of transforming this motley assemblage into an 
effective fighting force. He did so despite warnings from Army Chief 
of Staff General Ridgway and the rest of the Joint Chiefs that such an 
undertaking would be “hopeless” unless “a reasonably strong, stable, 
civil government” existed first. 24 

The first chief of the U.S. military aid mission to Vietnam, Lt. Gen. 
John W. O’Daniel (1954-1955), charted a course that was not dissimi¬ 
lar to that followed by other U.S. advisory groups during the 1940s and 
1950s. Like his counterparts, O’Daniel was faced with the dual task of 


307 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



South Vietnamese troops search for insurgents. 


preparing South Vietnam to meet both conventional and unconventional 
threats—namely an invasion from the North and internal instability in 
the South. As his contemporaries had done in other countries, O’Daniel 
adopted the existing array of military and paramilitary organizations as 
the basis upon which to build a multilayered security system. Security 
began at home with the Self-Defense Corps, a part-time militia that 
mobilized civilians to defend their villages against guerrilla raiders 
and Communist cadres. Backing the local militia was the Civil Guard, 
which consisted of company-size units deployed on a provincial basis to 
perform rural constabulary and security functions. Finally, at the top of 
the security system was the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, a loose 
collection of military units inherited from the French that O’Daniel 
proposed to transform into ten infantry divisions, thirteen independent 
territorial regiments, and an airborne regiment backed by an array of 
administrative, logistical, and combat support elements. 

Though based on American precepts, the South Vietnamese Army 
was not a carbon copy of the U.S. Army. Unlike the U.S. Army, whose 
organizational structure focused almost exclusively on the conduct 
of conventional warfare, only four of South Vietnam’s ten divisions 
were conventional “field” divisions. The remaining six divisions were 
“light” divisions that, together with the territorial regiments, were 
designed primarily for internal security work. Moreover, U.S. planners 
deliberately created a relatively austere force in deference to South 
Vietnam’s difficult topography, limited transportation infrastructure, 


308 









The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


and modest technical and logistical resources. Thus, the field divisions 
were half the size of a standard US. infantry division and included 
only one battalion of artillery, a stark contrast to the four artillery bat¬ 
talions typically found in a U.S. division. The light divisions were even 
leaner merely one-third the size of a U.S. division. These formations 
had few trucks and no artillery heavier than the 81-mm. mortar. In this 
way, the advisory group sought to endow the South Vietnamese Army 
with a structure that was capable of performing both counterguerrilla 
and limited conventional operations over Vietnam’s varied terrain. 2 ’ 

O’Daniel recognized the civil aspects of the South Vietnamese 
Army’s mission, and he requested that Colonel Lansdale be detailed to 
Vietnam to orchestrate the aid mission’s civic action and psychologi¬ 
cal operations advisory programs. As the mission’s chief pacification 
adviser, Lansdale blended local methods with his own experiences 
in the Huk rebellion to craft a program for the reclamation of Viet 
Cong—dominated areas. Following Viet Minh and French precedents, 
he established civic action cadre teams under the control of a Civic 
Action Directorate. Clad as peasants, the teams accompanied troops 
into Communist-controlled areas, where they sought to win the alle¬ 
giance of the population by sponsoring a variety of small-scale socio¬ 
economic programs. The cadres disseminated propaganda, distributed 
food and medicines, and encouraged the peasants to undertake a variety 
of self-improvement projects, such as digging wells, repairing roads, 
and building dispensaries. 26 

When Lt. Gen. Samuel T. Williams became chief of the Military 
Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam, in October 1955, he fretted 
that the light divisions would be unable to contribute effectively to 
the nation’s defense should the North Vietnamese invade, and he did 
not like the idea of a small country like Vietnam maintaining two dif¬ 
ferent divisional organizations. Therefore, in 1958 he persuaded the 
South Vietnamese to reorganize their army into seven standardized 
divisions. Although somewhat larger than the original field divisions 
and equipped with two artillery battalions, the new divisions remained 
keyed to the Vietnamese environment. 27 

Despite the fact that the South Vietnamese Army was supposed to 
be equally adept at regular and irregular warfare, neither O’Daniel nor 
Williams paid much attention to the special aspects of counterguerrilla 
warfare. Part of the reason for this was that both men were preoccupied 
with the Herculean task of creating a viable military organization in a 
new and unstable country. The fact that the Viet Cong did not initiate 
serious guerrilla activity until the late 1950s reinforced the advisory 
group’s conventional orientation, as did Williams’ view that to teach 


309 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


specialized missions to an army that had yet to master the fundamen¬ 
tals of military organization and operations was pointless. Like many 
American officers, Williams firmly believed that a thorough inculca¬ 
tion in the basics of individual soldiering and small-unit tactics was 
the best possible preparation for any type of combat, conventional or 
unconventional, and consequently during the 1950s the advisory group 
concentrated on these subjects. 2 " 

Williams did not, however, completely ignore counterguerrilla 
warfare. In December 1955 he gave Diem a short paper outlining his 
thoughts on counterinsurgency. After reviewing the Maoist approach to 
guerrilla warfare, Williams noted that “military operations alone are not 
sufficient for success as there are really two objectives: the destruction 
of the guerrilla force and the elimination of the Communist influence 
on the civil population. An over-all plan at Government level embracing 
political, psychological, economic, administrative and military action is 
necessary for success.” The ultimate goal of such a plan was to deny 
the guerrillas the human and material resources they needed to survive, 
whether these were drawn from the population or from an external 
source. While a keen intelligence service and aggressive military action 
using patrols and encirclement tactics drove the guerrillas away from 
populated areas toward their eventual disintegration and destruction, 
Williams called for the intelligent implementation of the “old principle 
of reward and punishment” to control the behavior of the population. 
In implementing such a program, he emphasized the importance of 
proper conduct on the part of civil and military officials, since “harsh, 
unjust, arbitrary action or mass punishment of innocent people, for the 
misdeeds of a few, will drive more people into the guerrilla ranks.” By 
executing an aggressive military campaign that was “in harmony with 
the political, psychological, and economic policies,” he believed South 
Vietnam could eventually slay the Communist dragon. 29 

Williams’ 1955 paper was in full accord with U.S. Army doctrine, 
and he transmitted similar recommendations throughout his tenure as 
MAAG chief (1955-1960). In 1957 MAAG, Vietnam, translated into 
Vietnamese all U.S. Army guerrilla and counterguerrilla manuals. The 
following year Williams circulated additional guidance in the form of 
a memo titled “Notes on Anti-Guerrilla Operations.” This document, 
which was lifted virtually verbatim from the 1951 edition of FM 31-20, 
Operations Against Guerrilla Forces , succinctly reiterated the basic 
principles of U.S. Army counterinsurgency doctrine, including the 
desirability of an integrated politico-military approach and the neces¬ 
sity of cutting the guerrillas off from the population via aggressive 
military action, restrictive control measures, and counterinfrastructure 


310 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


operations. The memo also encouraged advisers to promote training in 
subjects conducive to improved counterguerrilla performance. MAAG, 
Vietnam, reinforced these suggestions by developing counterguerrilla¬ 
training curriculums in 1958 and 1959 and by reissuing the “Notes” in 
I960. 30 

Although U.S. doctrine acknowledged that small, specially trained 
units were often more effective in irregular warfare than large, conven¬ 
tional formations, Williams discouraged Diem from creating sizable 
numbers of elite formations on the grounds that such units would drain 
army battalions of their best personnel and impede the overall organi¬ 
zational effort. Diem ignored this advice and in 1960 formed special 
antiguerrilla units called rangers. Faced with a fait accompli , the United 
States agreed to provide Special Forces personnel to train the new units, 
which Diem formed by stripping each infantry battalion of one of its 
four companies. The rangers proved effective soldiers but were often 
misused as garrison and strategic reserve troops. Moreover, by creating 
the rangers, Diem had reduced the effectiveness of his line battalions, 
since a battalion with four rifle companies was more effective in non¬ 
linear, area-style warfare than one with three. Unfortunately, American 
recommendations regarding the restoration of the fourth rifle company 
went unheeded. 31 

Regardless of how the South Vietnamese Army was organized, it 
could not operate effectively under any circumstances unless it had first 
been effectively trained. This proved to be a difficult task. Manpower con¬ 
straints and linguistic and cultural barriers impeded MAAG, Vietnam’s 
efforts, as did the South Vietnamese Army’s tendency to assign mediocre 
personnel as instructors. Compounding these difficulties was the lacka¬ 
daisical attitude that some Vietnamese officers displayed toward profes¬ 
sionalism in general and training in particular. Many had served in the 
French Army and dismissed American advice as coming from ignorant 
and pushy newcomers. Others were political appointees who believed 
that their careers depended more on political alignments than military 
performance. Caution, intrigue, and plodding staff work, not initiative 
and combat experience, were the tickets to promotion, and, under such 
circumstances, U.S. advisers had difficulty convincing Vietnamese 
officers to take training seriously. Finally, even the most diligent officer 
could claim with some justification that the press of operational require¬ 
ments prevented effective training. Dispersed among innumerable small 
outposts, South Vietnamese units often lacked the time and manpower 
to devote to training, and as the guerrilla menace grew, the situation got 
worse. By 1959 the government had committed 57 percent of its infantry 
to either pacification or static security missions. The drain caused by 


311 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


these assignments meant that one-third of all infantry battalions did not 
undergo any type of training that year. This situation placed grave strains 
on the army’s immature administrative and logistical systems, strains that 
proved just as disruptive to the development of the South Vietnamese 
Army as they had to the development of the South Korean military just 
a few years before. 32 

The comparison was not lost on Williams. In Korea, the Communists 
had used guerrilla warfare to sap the strength of their opponents before 
staging a major conventional invasion to reunify that divided country. 
The parallels to Vietnam appeared all too menacing to neglect, and 
consequently Williams attempted, as his predecessors had in Korea, to 
minimize the army’s involvement in internal security functions. Only 
by giving the army a respite from enervating garrison and pacification 
duty could it truly develop the professional competence it needed to 
become an effective organization. Thus Williams opposed suggestions 
that South Vietnamese troops perform civic action work, not because 
he failed to recognize the importance of winning popular support, 
but because he felt that the conscript’s twelve-month tour of duty was 
barely enough time to train and utilize him in his military functions. 
Diverting the conscript to perform manual labor would merely exacer¬ 
bate the army’s serious training deficiencies. 33 

To free the South Vietnamese Army for additional training, 
Williams hoped to rely on the paramilitary forces to shoulder the 
lion’s share of the internal security burden. In this his actions mirrored 
those taken by U.S. military advisers in Greece and Korea, but he was 
doomed to frustration. A tight ceiling limiting the number of U.S. mili¬ 
tary advisers and a philosophical decision on the part of the U.S. gov¬ 
ernment that police forces were a civil, not military, concern meant that 
MAAG, Vietnam, had little influence over South Vietnam’s police and 
paramilitary forces. Instead, the United States contracted out the para¬ 
military advisory function to Michigan State University. The Michigan 
group was oriented primarily toward traditional police functions and 
generally neglected the quasi-military aspects of internal security. 
Moreover, the group proved unequal to the difficult job of improving 
the image of the nation’s police forces, whose ineffectiveness, brutality, 
and corruption alienated them from the people. 34 

In 1957 U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Elbridge Durbrow 
rebuffed Williams’ offer to extend military assistance to the Civil Guard 
and Self-Defense Corps, choosing instead to withhold material assis¬ 
tance from the paramilitaries altogether until Diem agreed to make cer¬ 
tain concessions regarding their organization. The three-way donnybrook 
between Diem, Durbrow, and Williams over the paramilitary forces 


312 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


meant that those forces languished unattended during the first critical 
years of the insurgency. The inability of the civilian security apparatus to 
protect the nation’s people and resources from the Viet Cong thus created 
a vicious and downward-pulling spiral. Growing instability compelled 
the South Vietnamese Army to devote an ever-increasing share of its 
resources to internal security functions. This diversion impeded its pro¬ 
fessional development, which in turn made it less capable of combating 
the Viet Cong, hence leading to even greater instability. 35 

In 1960 Williams’ successor, Lt. Gen. Lionel C. McGarr, attempted 
to reverse this sequence of events. McGarr came to Vietnam from the 
Command and General Staff College, where, as the school’s comman¬ 
dant, he had played an active role in reviving Army counterinsurgency 
doctrine, an effort that would soon come to fruition in the 1961 edi¬ 
tions of FM 100-1 and FM 31-15. Shortly after arriving in the South 
Vietnamese capital of Saigon, McGarr committed his thoughts on 
counterguerrilla warfare to paper in two memos—“The Anti-Guerrilla 
Guerrilla” and “Implementing Actions for Anti-Guerrilla Operations.” 

In these widely distributed tracts, McGarr reiterated Williams’ call 
for an integrated politico-military campaign, as well as for the imagi¬ 
native adaptation of conventional techniques to Vietnamese conditions. 
He also reminded his readers that counterguerrilla warfare was just as 
much an ideological struggle as it was a military one, and he particu¬ 
larly stressed the importance of protecting the population from Viet 
Cong intimidation because unless people felt secure they would never 
provide the type of intelligence the government needed to root out the 
insurgents. Finally, McGarr used the papers to outline a strategy for 
countering the insurgency problem. 

To cut the Viet Cong off from their North Vietnamese brethren, 
McGarr proposed the creation of a cordon sanitaire , or “firebreak,” 
along Vietnam’s borders, where the entire population would be evacu¬ 
ated and anyone found inside the restricted zones could be killed. 
Meanwhile, in the interior, he advocated a strategy of progressive area 
clearance on the “oil spot” model. To implement this strategy, McGarr 
developed an operational concept that he labeled the net and spear. 
Under this concept, the South Vietnamese government would assign 
infantry units to specific operational areas where they would soon gain 
an intimate knowledge of the local military and political topography. 
Once established, these units would break down into innumerable small 
patrols that would act like a “net” to catch and destroy any small enemy 
units operating in the area. Should the “net” catch a large guerrilla 
formation, the patrols would shadow their quarry until larger reaction 
forces—the “spear”—could strike and destroy the ensnared guerrilla 


313 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


band, most likely through some form of encirclement action. After the 
army had succeeded in clearing a sector of guerrillas using the net-and- 
spear method, it would turn the defense of the area over to the paramili¬ 
taries and move on to clear another area, repeating the process until all 
of South Vietnam was free of guerrilla activity. 3 ' 1 

After publishing these ideas in November 1960, McGarr formed 
a combined U.S.-Vietnamese team to expand them into a more robust 
document. The resulting product was a handbook titled Tactics and 
Techniques of Counterinsurgent Operations. Continuously revised and 
updated by the allies, the handbook provided comprehensive guid¬ 
ance on the insurgency in South Vietnam. Included among its pages 
were background information on the land and its people, a review of 
Viet Cong tactics, and suggestions to advisers on how they could best 
perform their functions. Although certain sections were lifted from the 
British manual Conduct of Anti-terrorist Operations in Malaya , the 
majority of the manual related standard U.S. doctrine, augmented by 
insights derived by advisers and their Vietnamese counterparts. 

The handbook encouraged its readers to be flexible and to remem¬ 
ber that what worked in one situation might not be appropriate in 
another. It recommended that commanders employ ruses and decep¬ 
tions to beat the guerrilla at his own game. Among the tricks suggested 
by the manual were employing pseudo-guerrillas to masquerade as 
Viet Cong, concealing troops in seemingly innocuous vehicles, and 
using small outposts and patrols to bait the insurgents into launching an 
attack, while nearby reserves lay in wait to pounce on the unsuspecting 
enemy. 

By 1963 new editions of the handbook had begun to use the phrase 
clear and hold to describe pacification operations. The manual’s 
authors likewise kept abreast of new techniques as they were devel¬ 
oped, including the “eagle flight,” a type of heliborne patrol and strike 
operation. While terms and tactics might change, the handbook contin¬ 
ued to adhere to the underlying concept of progressive area clearance. 
It likewise retained statements regarding the importance of political 
factors. Thus the manual called for the humane treatment of prison¬ 
ers and civilians, as well as for remedial actions to redress the causes 
of dissent, reminding its readers that “at all times the requirement to 
ultimately separate the people from the insurgents, and induce them to 
support the local government must dominate every action.” 37 

During his tenure as MAAG chief (1960-1962), McGarr supported 
the establishment of an overarching Counterinsurgency Plan as a means 
of bringing greater cohesiveness to allied activities. The plan, which 
President Kennedy approved shortly after his inauguration, called for 


314 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


a carefully integrated political, military, economic, paramilitary, and 
police campaign to eliminate the Viet Cong and establish firm govern¬ 
ment control. To achieve this end, the plan recommended that the South 
Vietnamese government establish a National Security Council, with par¬ 
allel councils at every level ol administration. The Counterinsurgency 
Plan also endorsed more functional command and control arrange¬ 
ments and laid the groundwork for revitalizing Vietnam’s paramilitary 
forces by transferring U.S. funding and advisory functions for those 
formations from American civilian agencies to the Pentagon. 38 

While U.S. authorities prodded Diem to energize his counterin¬ 
surgency apparatus at the national level, they also undertook to create 
an ever more elaborate scaffold of military and civilian advisers with 
which to prop up the tottering regime. During his first year in office, 
Kennedy tripled the number of military advisers in Vietnam, from 900 
to over 3,000. Still this seemed insufficient, and a special study team 
headed by General Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended in November 
1961 that the president commit 8,000 combat troops to Vietnam. 
Kennedy balked at sending combat formations but accepted Taylor’s 
recommendation that the United States provide not only more advisers, 
but entire units of combat support personnel. This represented a major 
escalation of U.S. involvement in the Vietnamese civil war/ ' 

In December 1961 the first major U.S. Army units arrived 
in South Vietnam in the guise of the 8th and 57th Transportation 
Companies, whose thirty-two helicopters were intended to give the 
South Vietnamese new mobility. Their arrival, together with the infu¬ 
sion of a growing number of other operational units, necessitated a 
change in command arrangements in Vietnam. On 8 February 1962, 
the Pentagon created a new entity, the Military Assistance Command, 
Vietnam, to supervise the activities of MAAG, Vietnam (which MACV 
eventually absorbed), and the growing number of support units sent to 
bolster the South Vietnamese. By the time of Kennedy’s death in 1963, 
the United States had deployed approximately 16,000 military person¬ 
nel to Vietnam. 

One group of U.S. soldiers not initially under MACV control were 
small teams of Special Forces personnel sent into Vietnam’s hinterlands 
to rally ethnic minorities to the anti-Communist cause. Operating ini¬ 
tially under the CIA, the Special Forces teams worked primarily with 
South Vietnam’s Montagnard population, conducting civic actions, 
building fortified villages, and raising a paramilitary defense force— 
the Civilian Irregular Defense Group—to protect the Montagnards from 
the Viet Cong. By the time MACV assumed control over the program in 
1963, Special Forces had raised 51,000 paramilitary troops. 40 


315 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


As Special Forces expanded its presence among the Montagnards, 
so too did the Army increase its support of the rest of South Vietnam’s 
security establishment. In 1961 MAAG, Vietnam, assigned advisers to 
South Vietnamese battalions and authorized them to accompany these 
units into combat. Manpower limits prohibited a similar arrangement 
for paramilitary formations, but in 1961 the Army finally began to 
rearm and train the heretofore neglected Civil Guard and Self-Defense 
Corps—soon to be renamed Regional Forces and Popular Forces, 
respectively. Efforts to strengthen the government’s ability to secure 
its people from Communist intimidation received an added boost in 
1962, when Saigon announced the formation of a National Police force 
to be advised and trained by AID and the CIA. Meanwhile, the United 
States pressed the Vietnamese to accept a greater American presence in 
the countryside through the guise of military advisory detachments at 
the province (1962) and district (1964) levels. These advisers involved 
themselves in the full panoply of counterinsurgency endeavors. They 
correlated and disseminated information in province and district intelli¬ 
gence coordination centers, drew up operational plans and pacification 
schemes, assisted local paramilitary forces, and provided advice on a 
wide range of civil matters, from agronomy to digging wells. Indeed, in 
contrast to advisers posted to military units, the Army’s provincial and 
district advisers spent about 50 percent of their time on civil issues. 41 

While the advisory framework kept the South Vietnamese gov¬ 
ernment intact, MACV worked to improve the performance of com¬ 
bat units. By 1962 Army advisers had reoriented all of the South 
Vietnamese Army’s training programs to counterguerrilla warfare. As 
had been the case during the 1950s, FM 31-20 (1951) and subsequent 
U.S. Army manuals heavily influenced the new training materials. 42 

In these materials and in their conversations with their counterparts, 
the Americans urged the South Vietnamese to abandon the “Maginot- 
type defensive attitude” inherited from the French and to employ fire 
and maneuver to find, fix, fight, and finish the enemy. Having learned 
from experience that linear sweeps by large formations rarely suc¬ 
ceeded in bringing the enemy to battle, the Americans recommended 
that the South Vietnamese limit such undertakings to situations where 
intelligence was poor or a known base area needed to be combed. 
Otherwise, the Army preferred that the South Vietnamese employ 
extensive small-unit patrols as part of a wider clear-and-hold strategy. 
Such operations, the Army believed, offered the best way of keeping an 
area clear of enemy forces for a prolonged period. Small-unit infantry 
tactics, ambush and counterambush drills, march and camp security, 
patrolling, raiding, and village search techniques thus formed the core 


316 



The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


of the training program. American training materials also taught the 
South Vietnamese to employ traditional encirclement tactics to effect 
the enemy’s destruction, supplemented by the new techniques of air¬ 
mobile warfare. U.S. advisers particularly emphasized night operations, 
and thanks to their efforts South Vietnamese regulations required that 
50 percent of all tactical training be conducted at night. Conversely, 
advisory personnel also believed that the nature of the terrain and the 
enemy largely negated the value of large armored formations and heavy 
air and artillery bombardments, and therefore such tactics received sub¬ 
sidiary treatment in American-drafted training materials. 43 

While the training program focused on tactical issues, U.S. advisers 
were also careful to stress that the “most delicate and important job” of 
counterguerrilla warfare was isolating the guerrillas from the people, 
a task that the Aanericans believed required that the South Vietnamese 
Army gain the “trust, confidence and support of the people by showing 
in deeds as well as words that military forces do, in fact, help support 
and defend the people.” Consequently, training materials emphasized 
the importance of good troop behavior and civic actions while discour¬ 
aging uncompensated foraging, looting, and indiscriminate shooting. In 
fact, advisers warned the Vietnamese that “fire power is a double-edged 
weapon in a 'peoples’ war,” and that it must be carefully controlled to 
avoid undue harm to the population. For this reason, MACV recom¬ 
mended that unobserved artillery fire only be employed in areas that 
either were devoid of friendly civilians or were known to support the 
Viet Cong. 44 

Although General Williams had not been enthusiastic about divert¬ 
ing South Vietnamese soldiers to civic action work, his successors made 
it an increasing priority. The Army started sending civic action teams 
to Vietnam shortly after Eisenhower authorized the concept in 1960, 
and by 1962 these teams, together with a newly established civil affairs 
adviser within MAAG, Vietnam, had persuaded the Saigon government 
to reinvigorate its sagging civic action program. In 1963 the Army rein¬ 
forced this effort by posting civic action and psyops advisers down to 
the division and province level. It also initiated what was perhaps the 
most popular combined civic action program ot the war—the medical 
civic action program (MEDCAP). Under MEDCAP, teams of American 
and Vietnamese medical personnel traveled the countryside providing 
free services to civilians. By 1965 MEDCAP teams had dispensed over 
4.5 million treatments in their effort to win over the Vietnamese people 
by treating their illnesses. 4 " 

Few soldiers believed that communism could be defeated by inocula¬ 
tions alone, and therefore the Army also communicated less benevolent 


317 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


ways of controlling the behavior of 
Vietnamese civilians. These ranged 
from relatively passive measures, 
like taking a census, to more intru¬ 
sive restrictions over the movement 
of people and goods. When such 
measures were insufficient, South 
Vietnamese doctrine also permit¬ 
ted soldiers to destroy villages, 
livestock, and crops, heavy-handed 
techniques that could well backfire 
if not exercised with care. 46 

By the early 1960s America’s 
prescription for South Vietnam 
was fairly well in place. At the 
national level, U.S. civil represen¬ 
tatives pressed for reforms and 
economic development backed 
by more efficient administrative 
mechanisms to produce a well-integrated politico-military campaign. 
U.S. military advisers supported these efforts and sought to rein¬ 
force them by encouraging proper troop behavior and civic actions. 
Operationally, the Army counseled an aggressive campaign in which 
military units, freed from garrison work by the development of more 
efficient police and paramilitary forces, would take to the field to drive 
the guerrillas away from the population, thereby laying the basis for the 
gradual expansion of government control throughout the country. Over 
the years, both the Vietnamese and the Americans would tinker with 
this formula, adopting new organizational structures, dropping failed 
initiatives, and generally adjusting their activities to the ebb and flow 
of the war. Yet the core goals would remain fundamentally unchanged. 
Perhaps the best example of this continuity of purpose despite outward 
changes in organization and nomenclature had to do with the village 
security program, a program that lay at the core of all South Vietnamese 
pacification initiatives. 47 

Following precedents established by both sides during the Indochina 
War, the South Vietnamese government had always favored the idea of 
using traveling teams of officials to extend its control over the country¬ 
side. Lansdale’s civic action teams were just the first example of numer¬ 
ous cadre schemes employed by the government over the years. Although 
the organization, composition, and mission of these teams varied, in 
general they all sought to organize local governments, form paramilitary 



A U.S. Army medic treats a 
Vietnamese child as part of the 
medical civic action program. 


318 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


defense groups, and otherwise rally the people to the government’s cause 
through a combination of propaganda and civic action programs. Since 
the government lacked sufficient military forces to be everywhere at 
once and since many Vietnamese villages were not readily defensible, 
the government also adopted early on the idea of relocating people to 
places more readily controlled by the government. Such relocation and 
fortification schemes served the dual purpose of enhancing the security 
of the Vietnamese people while draining the countryside of the human 
sea on whom the guerrillas depended for their survival. 

Although U.S. military advisers recognized the desirability of 
increasing the security of the population, the Vietnamese themselves 
took the lead on this issue. Based on French colonial precedents, Diem, 
without consulting the United States, began organizing defended ham¬ 
lets, dubbed “agrovilles,” in 1959. Three years later he launched an even 
more ambitious scheme when, inspired by British activities in Malaya, 
he initiated the Strategic Hamlet Program. Like the agrovilles, the pri¬ 
mary purpose of the strategic hamlets was to separate the people from 
the guerrillas, although the program also paid lip service to the notion 
that the new hamlets would become vehicles for introducing improved 
amenities like schools and dispensaries. In theory, the strategic hamlets 
were to be constructed in an orderly fashion in accordance with an 
expanding oil-spot area security approach, though this was not observed 
in practice. The program lasted until 1964, only to be replaced by a suc¬ 
cession of similar programs under different names, all of which sought 
to bring greater security, control, and public services to the countryside 
through the fortification of old villages and the establishment of new, 
more defensible ones. 48 

None of the many military and pacification initiatives launched by 
South Vietnam in the early 1960s succeeded in stemming the Communist 
tide. Saigon continued to resist American-proffered reforms, while cor¬ 
ruption, incompetence, and a general lack of leadership at all levels 
impeded the execution of those programs the government attempted 
to undertake. Insufficiently trained cadres, inadequate resources, and 
poorly executed security measures likewise combined to undermine 
the various village defense schemes, many of which were unpopular 
as they imposed hardships and moved people away from ancestral 
lands. What gains were made were largely wiped out in late 1963 with 
the assassination of Diem, whose death initiated a year and a half of 
political turmoil that severely undermined most pacification programs. 
Even in the best of times, rivalry and poor communication between 
government ministries greatly impeded the prosecution of the counter¬ 
insurgency campaign. The magnitude of the problem was shown by the 


319 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



South Vietnamese civilians build fortifications aroun d their hamlet. 


fact that by 1965 the government was fielding twenty-seven different 
types of pacification cadres and fifteen different armed forces, few of 
which were inclined to cooperate with the others. 44 

Meanwhile, the bureaucratic wrangling within the South Vietnamese 
government was complicated by similar divisions within the U.S. gov¬ 
ernment. The result was that various U.S. agencies ended up pushing 
upon the South Vietnamese a plethora of competing initiatives that 
diffused the counterinsurgency effort, overburdened South Vietnam’s 
already strained administrative apparatus, and reinforced the innate 
parochialism exhibited by Vietnamese institutions. Moreover, while 
most U.S. officials broadly accepted the basic tenets of counterinsur¬ 
gency theory, they differed sharply on how best to implement them. The 
differences were myriad, but the divisions were not always drawn along 
bureaucratic lines. Indeed, one could usually find soldiers and civilians 
on each side of any particular issue. 50 

Perhaps the debate that had the most serious consequences for the 
prosecution of the war was that over the relative priority to be accorded 
to military versus political action. Civilian agencies tended to empha¬ 
size nation building and reform as the sine qua non of pacification, 
sometimes going so far as to assert that it should take precedence over 
the military campaign. This had been Ambassador Durbrow’s philoso¬ 
phy, and many others shared this belief. MACV and most of the mili¬ 
tary establishment, on the other hand, tended to place military issues 
first. While acknowledging the ultimate importance of political affairs, 


320 



The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


the military argued that most civil initiatives would go for naught until 
some semblance of security had been achieved. As General Williams 
explained, “the truth is the population of South Vietnam, like any other, 
is more responsive to tear and force than to an improved standard of 
living. The conclusion is clear: the paramount consideration is to gain 
and maintain a superiority of force in all parts of the country. This is 
done by developing the military and police potential as the most urgent 
objective of our national program in Vietnam.” McGarr agreed, stat¬ 
ing that “while this is a Politico-Military situation, it has reached the 
stage where it must be recognized that a military solution must come 
before the political can be meaningful.” Subsequent advisory chiefs 
adopted similar positions, as did some prominent civilians, including 
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and senior pacification official Robert 
W. Komer. Nevertheless, the argument over whether political or mili¬ 
tary issues should receive the most emphasis was never fully resolved. 
When coupled with bureaucratic rivalries and personal jealousies, the 
debate impeded American efforts to put forward a coherent program. It 
also resulted in much wasted effort, as overly optimistic expectations as 
to the seductive power of material goods and internal improvements led 
allied agencies to dispense aid indiscriminately among the Vietnamese 
people. All too often the recipients were no more loyal after they had 
received American largess than they had been before, either because 
their loyalty could not be bought or because the government’s inability 
to secure them from Viet Cong retaliation made risking one’s life in 
exchange for a free medical exam impolitic."' 

The dissipation of America’s sizable nation-building effort on fal¬ 
low or insecure ground was not the only factor impeding the effective¬ 
ness of the government’s civic action program. Just as important were 
impediments embedded within South Vietnamese society. Many South 
Vietnamese officials found civic action work demeaning. Enlisted men 
were equally uninterested in performing civic action, in part because 
the army’s poorly housed and paid soldiers saw little virtue in doing 
good deeds for people who in many cases were not only better off than 
they, but were actively helping the enemy as well. Ultimately, too many 
bureaucrats exhibited haughty and self-aggrandizing behavior, too 
many soldiers shot and foraged indiscriminately, and too many police¬ 
men engaged in extortion for the government’s American-financed 
civic action programs to make a significant difference in the course of 
the war." 2 

These shortcomings in pacification might have been overcome by 
effective military action, for, although the government had failed to win 
the support of the population at large, a growing number of people were 


321 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



As in many insurgencies, war and peace shared an uneasy 
coexistence in South Vietnam. 

also becoming disenchanted by the Viet Cong’s seemingly unquench¬ 
able thirst for food, money, and recruits. The military was, however, 
unable to stamp out the insurgency. 

In the opinion of U.S. soldiers, the South Vietnamese Army’s 
inability to contain the Viet Cong stemmed not from weaknesses in 
U.S. doctrine, but from the army’s failure to implement American 
advice. There was much to substantiate such a view, as the Vietnamese 
diluted or ignored many American recommendations. Regulations 
notwithstanding, Vietnamese officers seldom trained or operated at 
night. They generally did not feel inclined to embrace calls for vig¬ 
orous, offensive action, preferring instead the relative safety of their 
cantonments. Their passivity—exacerbated by heavy security commit¬ 
ments—dissipated the army’s strength, sapped its morale, and ceded the 
initiative to the enemy.’ 3 

When they did act, South Vietnamese commanders favored cau¬ 
tion over initiative and imagination. They clung to roads rather than 
delve into the bush and habitually returned to their bases each evening 
rather than remain in the field, thereby violating the principles of con¬ 
tinuous contact and relentless pursuit. Vietnamese commanders also 


322 














The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


generally ignored admonitions that they saturate the countryside with 
small-unit patrols, preferring instead to operate in battalion or larger 
groups. These large-unit formations typically undertook ponderous 
linear sweeps toward fixed terrain objectives that the nimble guerrillas 
easily avoided. Once such an operation was completed—and 65 percent 
of South Vietnamese operations of battalion-size or larger lasted no 
more than one day—the troops would depart, leaving the Viet Cong 
to reassert their control over the recently “cleared” countryside and its 
inhabitants. 54 

Encirclement operations likewise usually failed to catch the enemy 
due to inadequacies of execution, the exigencies of terrain, and the 
excellence of the enemy’s espionage service. Similarly, when the 
Vietnamese did make contact with the enemy, they usually failed to 
apply effectively American combined arms, fire, and maneuver con¬ 
cepts. Rather than closing aggressively with the enemy in the Fort 
Benning tradition, Vietnamese commanders preferred to sit back and 
let supporting air and artillery fires do the work of the infantryman. 
This might have worked had the South Vietnamese employed such 
tactics effectively, but all too often poorly executed operations allowed 
the enemy to escape potential firetraps. Moreover, government artillery 
resources were so limited and widely dispersed that they were rarely 
in a position to deal the enemy a decisive blow. In fact, a 1965 study 
indicated that the South Vietnamese Army rarely employed more than 
two artillery pieces at a time, with approximately half of all fire mis¬ 
sions expending six or fewer rounds of ammunition. Under such cir¬ 
cumstances, government artillery strikes served more as warning shots 
than as agents of destruction/' 

While the government floundered, the Viet Cong prospered. From 
3,000 guerrillas in 1959, the Viet Cong grew to 30,000 full-time regu¬ 
lars and 80,000 militiamen by 1965. To these, North Vietnam was rap¬ 
idly adding thousands of regular soldiers and tons of military supplies. 
Thanks to the infusion of modern Soviet and Chinese materiel, by the 
mid-1960s Communist main force troops had more firepower at their 
disposal than the average South Vietnamese infantryman, let alone the 
more poorly equipped paramilitary soldier. 56 

Outfoxed, outmaneuvered, and increasingly outgunned, by the 
spring of 1965 the South Vietnamese government was losing the 
equivalent of one battalion and one district capital a week. With about 
half of South Vietnam already in Communist hands and with no end 
to the deterioration in sight, MACV Commander General William C. 
Westmoreland concluded reluctantly that the United States had no 
choice “other than to put our finger in the dike.” President Lyndon B. 


323 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

Johnson concurred, and in March 1965 he deployed the first ground 
combat units to Vietnam. Four years later, U.S. troop strength in theater 
would peak at 543,000 men. 57 

America’s direct military involvement succeeded in stopping the 
hemorrhage and in inflicting significant losses on the enemy. Yet the 
war continued as the North Vietnamese offset allied deployments with 
troop infusions of their own. Then, in early 1968, the Communists 
struck back with a major offensive that, while initially successful, was 
ultimately repulsed with heavy casualties. The failed Tet offensive 
proved to be a turning point in the war. As had occurred in Korea 
in 1950, many southern cadres had come out of hiding to assist the 
general offensive, and when that effort collapsed, they became vulner¬ 
able to allied countermeasures. Moreover, local Viet Cong forces bore 
the brunt of the offensive, and their high casualties left the village 
Communist apparatus dangerously exposed. The resulting weakness of 
the local Communist infrastructure, when combined with the increasing 
reluctance of a war-weary population to support a cause whose chances 
for victory now seemed much diminished, meant that the Communists 
had to rely increasingly on force and intimidation to obtain men and 
sustenance from the population, a situation that further eroded their 
popularity with the people. x 

The United States recognized the opportunity and moved to exploit 
it. Assisted by the shock that the 1968 offensive had given senior 
South Vietnamese leaders, the United States succeeded in coaxing the 
government to make some significant reforms. Included among these 
were a more effective manpower mobilization system and a major land 
reform initiative that by 1973 had distributed roughly 2.5 million acres 
of land to previously landless peasants. Meanwhile, MACV redoubled 
its efforts at improving the security situation. With the Viet Cong reel¬ 
ing from their defeat, MACV was able to shift the weight of the allied 
military effort into operations that directly supported pacification. The 
result was that government control over the countryside steadily grew 
after 1968, with the Communists receiving a concomitant decline in 
support.' 1 ' 

One element that contributed to the government’s improved perfor¬ 
mance after 1968 was a series of measures undertaken between 1964 
and 1967 to reduce the bureaucratic wrangling that had often under¬ 
mined allied pacification efforts. After the government consolidated 
its many cadre and village fortification schemes into a coordinated 
Revolutionary Development program in 1965, the United States put 
its own house in order by placing MACV in charge of most U.S. paci¬ 
fication support activities. 60 This step, which was in full accord with 


324 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


the Army s long-established view that unity of command and politico- 
military coordination were essential in counterinsurgency, was fiercely 
resisted by civilian agencies as an unwarranted erosion of their institu¬ 
tional autonomy. Nevertheless, the establishment of a single manager 
for pacification in the guise of the Office of the Assistant Chief of 
Staff for Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support 
(CORDS) improved the orchestration and presentation of US. advice 
and assistance on pacification-related programs. Headed by a civilian 
who served as a deputy to the MACV commander, CORDS’ military- 
heavy staff applied itself to nearly every aspect of pacification, from 
civic action and propaganda to amnesty programs and paramilitary 
defense. 61 

CORDS particularly championed MACV’s traditional viewpoint 
that security was essential to pacification, and it devoted the vast 
majority of its resources toward improving the day-to-day safety of 
Vietnamese civilians through a variety of police, paramilitary, village 
defense, and counterintelligence programs. Through its auspices, the 
government’s paramilitary forces, which usually equaled or exceeded 
the South Vietnamese Army in numbers, grew in capability, eventually 
achieving parity with the Viet Cong in terms of weaponry. In conjunc¬ 
tion with AID and the CIA, CORDS also redoubled U.S. efforts at 
inducing South Vietnam’s police and intelligence agencies to ferret out 
the Communist infrastructure through an initiative called the Phoenix 
program. The resilience of the Viet Cong underground and continued 
disarray in the government’s police, judicial, and intelligence systems 
limited the Phoenix program’s achievements. Nevertheless, through 
the cumulative weight of military and counterinfrastructure activities, 
the South Vietnamese and their U.S. allies gradually whittled away 
the strength of the Viet Cong. By 1973 U.S. analysts estimated that 
southerners constituted only about 17 percent of all Communist combat 
troops and 50 percent of all enemy administrative and service personnel 
in South Vietnam. What had once been a flourishing southern-based 
insurgency had given way to a faltering war effort whose continued 
prosecution was possible only by the infusion of men and materiel from 
North Vietnam. 62 

While South Vietnam had made significant headway in squelching 
the insurgency after 1968, its achievements were not without serious 
blemishes. To begin with, many of the reforms proffered by the South 
Vietnamese government proved to be hollow. Despite decades of prod¬ 
ding, South Vietnam’s leaders were no more effective in 1974 than 
they had been in 1954. With the exception of the belated land reform 
law, the government had made little progress in alleviating the nation’s 


325 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A South Vietnamese Army cultural drama group woos villagers as part of 
the battle for the hearts and minds of the population. 


many social ills. What progress had been made was largely offset 
by ravaging inflation fueled by U.S. military spending. Meanwhile, 
military actions on both sides had killed and maimed over a million 
civilians and dislocated millions more. Some of these refugees had 
willingly fled their homes to escape the Communists. The allies had 
forcibly relocated others—several hundred thousand over the course 
of the war—to separate them from the guerrillas. The vast majority 
of refugees, however, were people who left their homes to avoid the 
hazards posed by military operations. Ultimately, over half of South 
Vietnam’s population left their homes at some point during the con¬ 
flict, a situation that imposed enormous burdens on the country and 
compelled the allies to divert much of their nation-building resources 
to humanitarian relief. 63 

Problems pertaining to the civil side of the war were matched by 
deficits on the security side, where once again ostensible gains proved 
superficial. Sixteen thousand advisers and vast quantities of materiel 
could not easily correct the harmful effects of continued maladmin¬ 
istration within the ranks of South Vietnam’s security services. More 
often than not, the government’s military victories after 1965 had been 
achieved as the result of the application of American combat power, 
rather than through the actions of the government’s security apparatus. 
Even the improved level of security enjoyed by a growing number of 
civilians was not all that it seemed. For despite the allies’ stated goal of 


326 





The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


bringing security to the people, in reality a large proportion of the peo¬ 
ple added to the rolls ol those living in “secured” areas were refugees 
who had relocated—either voluntarily or otherwise—from Viet Cong 
areas into government-controlled enclaves. Many of these people were 
impoverished, so that while their ability to aid the enemy was restricted, 
few could be counted as enthusiastic subjects of the government. Senior 
U.S. and Vietnamese officials were cognizant of this fact and attempted 
to direct psychological and humanitarian programs to relieve suffering 
and build greater support for the government among the people, but all 
too often the resources were inadequate and the government’s adminis¬ 
trative machinery too frail, corrupt, or uncaring to carry out this policy 
effectively. 64 

All of these shortcomings might not have been important had the 
allies been able to cut the insurgents off from their northern benefactor. 
Isolated from external support, the southern insurgents could no more 
have survived allied military and security programs than the guerrillas 
of South Korea or Greece before them. Such isolation was not achieved, 
however, with the result that the South Vietnamese government was 
never able to secure large sections of the countryside. The decision by 
the United States and South Vietnam’s other allies to withdraw their 
combat forces in the early 1970s without having first evicted the North 
Vietnamese from South Vietnam thus left the Saigon government in 
an extremely precarious position. From an all-time high of twenty-two 
allied divisions, by 1973 South Vietnam had only its own thirteen divi¬ 
sions left to face the eleven divisions and twenty-four regiments North 
Vietnam still maintained in the South. 65 

Had the government made better use of two decades worth of 
American support it might have been able to survive. Instead, the pro¬ 
ficiency of nearly all South Vietnamese military, paramilitary, police, 
and intelligence services declined noticeably with the withdrawal of 
U.S. advisers and support units. Crash efforts by MACV prior to the 
withdrawal to improve South Vietnam’s military capability so that it 
could stand up to the North Vietnamese Army likewise fell short, in 
part because, as General Williams had feared, years ot relatively static 
and disjointed territorial security duty had kept the South Vietnamese 
Army from developing the type of command, control, and adminis¬ 
trative apparatus needed to conduct large-scale conventional opera¬ 
tions on a sustained basis. Once the United States began to curtail 
its financial and material assistance, South Vietnam’s days were 
numbered. The final blow came in 1975, when the North Vietnamese 
Army overran South Vietnam in a lightning offensive led by tanks 
and heavy artillery, an offensive not unlike the one which had almost 


327 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


extinguished South Korea a quarter-century before. Williams’ night¬ 
mare had finally come true. 66 

The Asian Experience Outside Indochina 

The triumphal entry of North Vietnamese troops into Saigon in 
April 1975 was the last act of the thirty-year civil war that had racked 
Indochina since 1945. Shortly before South Vietnam’s denouement, 
the two other non-Communist states that had emerged from the old 
French colony—Laos and Cambodia—also fell to indigenous guerril¬ 
las backed by North Vietnamese regulars. Although the civil wars in 
Indochina accounted for the lion’s share of America’s overseas coun¬ 
terinsurgency expenditures between 1955 and 1975, the United States 
had also worked to staunch the flow of revolution throughout the rest 
of Asia. The degree of American activity and the methods used varied 
from country to country, but for the most part U.S. soldiers acted in 
accordance with the basic principles embodied in U.S. doctrine. 

Throughout Asia, U.S. officials preached a creed of social and 
economic modernization, military civic action, and, when necessary, 
counterguerrilla warfare. In Southwest Asia, Army advisers enthu¬ 
siastically supported Turkey’s use of its armed forces as a school of 
the nation. Under this program, the Turkish military taught conscripts 
how to read and write as well as technical skills, like typing and auto¬ 
motive mechanics, that they could use after completing their military 
service. Even more impressive was the Iranian military’s civic action 
program. Initiated by U.S. advisers in the 1950s, the program rep¬ 
resented a broad-spectrum use of the military as a nation-building 
agent. In addition to constructing roads and providing disaster relief, 
the Iranian military strove to improve its public image by eliminat¬ 
ing corruption and brutality from within its ranks. It also posted 
civic action officers to every battalion in the army and created three 
special organizations—the Literacy, Sanitary and Health, and Rural 
Development Corps—that worked to improve the life of the ordinary 
Iranian. Together with the counterguerrilla tactics taught by U.S. mili¬ 
tary advisers, the Iranian civic action program helped the shah pacify 
rebellious tribes and push forward an ambitious program of land 
reform, industrialization, and modernization. So effective was the 
Iranian program that the U.S. Army considered it a textbook example 
of American principles in action. 67 

Unfortunately, the actual results of American-sponsored civic 
action programs were less notable. In Turkey, discharged conscripts 
trained as typists frequently returned to villages devoid of typewrit- 


328 






The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


ers. Meanwhile, the shah ol Iran’s strenuous efforts to transform his 
country into a modern, industrialized, and Westernized society even¬ 
tually created a cultural and religious backlash that resulted in his 
ovei throw in 1979 and the establishment of a radical Islamic republic 
that was extremely hostile to the United States. Much to the chagrin 
of U.S. theorists, neither the shah’s ambitious land reform program 
nor his patronage ol a rising middle class saved him from the violent 
social forces unleashed by the modernization process. 68 

The situation in East Asia was equally mixed. American-backed 
developmental programs frequently succeeded in promoting modern¬ 
ization, but all too often failed to redress the underlying factors that 
might spawn unrest. U.S. social engineers were particularly unsuccess¬ 
ful in promoting democracy, social equality, and apolitical military 
institutions. Ruthless action rather than reform crushed Indonesia’s 
Communists, while the hollowness of Magsaysay’s reforms and the 
corruption of his successors led to a renewed Communist insurgency 
and ethnic rebellions in the Philippines in the late 1960s, conflicts that 
continue to the present day. 69 

The circumstances in South Korea were somewhat different. 
There, rapid modernization engendered social dislocations that, when 
coupled with festering tensions between rightists, leftists, and propo¬ 
nents of greater democratization, seemed to create fertile ground for 
Communist activity. On the other hand, the nation’s growing prosperity, 
when linked with the effects of a land reform program that by 1966 had 
virtually eliminated tenant farming, produced a mixture of compla¬ 
cency and pride that dampened revolutionary sentiment. 

Although an indigenous Communist underground movement 
persisted in South Korea, it had never recovered from the defeats of 
1948-1953 and lacked the ability to overthrow the government on its 
own. Recognizing this fact, North Korea’s Kim II Sung had continued 
to send agitators into the South, either by sea or by land across the heav¬ 
ily defended Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated the two Koreas. 
By the mid-1960s these actions had failed to undermine the Seoul gov¬ 
ernment, and consequently Kim decided to press the issue further. He 
escalated military activity along the inter-Korean border and increased 
the infiltration, not just of individual agents, but of entire units of 
saboteurs and guerrillas, into the South. In addition to taking direct 
action against the U.S.-led United Nations contingent that guarded the 
DMZ, Kim hoped the infiltrators would form the nucleus of a renewed 
insurgency that would drive the Americans out of Korea, undermine 
the staunchly anti-Communist government of President Park Chung 
Hee, and pave the way for the reunification of the peninsula under 


329 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

Communist control. With the United States increasingly distracted by 
the war in Vietnam, the time seemed opportune. 70 (Map 12) 

After thirteen years of relative quiet guarding the inter-Korean bor¬ 
der, the U.S. Eighth Army received a rude introduction to Kim’s revived 
ambitions on 2 November 1966, when North Korean troops ambushed 
a U.S. patrol south of the Demilitarized Zone, killing six Americans. 
As the infiltrations escalated, additional clashes occurred in the spring 
of 1967. While northern infiltrators ambushed U.S. and South Korean 
patrols, mined roads, and bombed an American barracks near the DMZ, 
others moved farther south in an effort to link up with indigenous 
Communists and spark renewed peasant uprisings. 

Although UN defenses along the border were well suited to blunting 
a conventional attack, South Korea’s rugged terrain and long coastline 
made stopping small bands of infiltrators exceedingly difficult. On the 
other hand, the commander of UN forces in Korea, U.S. Army General 
Charles H. Bonesteel III, enjoyed several advantages over General 
Westmoreland in Vietnam. South Korea’s border with the North, while 
mountainous, was well mapped, heavily guarded, and only about 243 
kilometers long. Moreover, thanks to a system worked out during the 
Korean War, Bonesteel had operational control over the South Korean 
Army. This arrangement gave him much more latitude and author¬ 
ity than Westmoreland in shaping indigenous actions. Although not 
without its problems, South Korea was also a much more homogenous 
nation than South Vietnam, with an abler military, a stronger govern¬ 
mental apparatus, and a history of successful counterinsurgency opera¬ 
tions. These factors, when coupled with the overall weakness exhibited 
by the South’s indigenous insurgent movement, would place South 
Korea on a very different course from its sister Asian republic. 

Bonesteel adopted a twofold approach to the irregular threat. The 
first element was to tighten security along South Korea’s borders. In 
addition to stepping up patrol, ambush, and counterinfiltration train¬ 
ing, he erected a new defensive barrier just behind the DMZ. The new 
barrier consisted of a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, behind 
which lay a dirt strip to reveal footprints and a defoliated zone to pro¬ 
vide improved observation and fields of fire. High tech sensors, mine¬ 
fields, observation posts, and regular patrols backed by rapid reaction 
forces rounded out the system. Although it could not stop every enemy 
incursion, the barrier presented hostile intruders with a daunting, multi¬ 
layered gauntlet that greatly increased the ability of UN forces to thwart 
infiltrators. 

While Bonesteel was fairly successful in sealing South Korea’s bor¬ 
der, he was less successful in stopping infiltration by sea. Twenty-eight 


330 



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1966 



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KOREA ' Hyesanjin 


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Map 12 














Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



U.S. soldiers patrol the barrier fence bordering the 
Korean Demilitarized Zone. 


times the length of its land frontier, South Korea’s coastline presented 
infiltrators with many havens. A barrier system was out of the ques¬ 
tion, and the small South Korean Navy did not have the means to patrol 
Korea’s heavily trafficked coastal waters effectively. Moreover, unlike 
the Demilitarized Zone, which was essentially an Army preserve, the 
protection of Korea’s coasts was complicated by the fact that it was of 
necessity an interagency affair, in which South Korean military, police, 
intelligence, and political entities all needed to cooperate. Such coop¬ 
eration took time to achieve. Eventually South Korea would develop 
a multilayered coastal anti-infiltration system that employed aircraft, 
ships, radar, coast watchers, village defense units, and military reac¬ 
tion forces. Though increasingly successful at detecting infiltrators, this 
system was never as tight as that developed along the DMZ. 71 

Side by side with efforts to stop infiltrators was a second major 
element, a counterinsurgency campaign in South Korea’s interior. 
Here Bonesteel’s influence was less direct. Although his position as 
UN commander gave him operational control over the Korean armed 
forces during periods of conflict, Bonesteel generally confined him¬ 
self to providing advice when managing Korea’s internal war. Such 
a stance reflected both respect for Korean sovereignty and American 
reticence about becoming directly involved in the internal affairs of 
other nations. It likewise mirrored command arrangements during the 
first Korean insurgency of 1948-1954, as well as similar arrangements 


332 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 



South Korean troops debark from a U.S. Army helicopter during a coun¬ 
terguerrilla operation in South Korea in 1968. 


in South Vietnam, where the United States devoted the majority of U.S. 
military might to the conventional battle while letting the indigenous 
government bear the burden of pacification. With the exception of 
KMAG advisers and a few Special Forces training teams, Bonesteel 
would keep the U.S. Army in Korea firmly fixed along the DMZ to 
face the external threat posed by the North Korean Army and its special 
infiltration units. 72 

Many of the problems South Korea experienced during the initial 
phases of the insurgency mirrored those from the 1948-1954 period. 
As in the 1940s and 1950s, the Korean police bore primary respon¬ 
sibility for the counterguerrilla war, as the bulk of South Korea’s 
Army was deployed along the border. And, as in that first conflict, 
rival police, intelligence, and military bureaucracies initially waged 
an uncoordinated campaign in which ad hoc task forces chased after 
guerrillas on a piecemeal basis. Drawing on both their own experi¬ 
ences as well as American advice, the Koreans gradually moved to 
correct these deficiencies. They mobilized rear area security divisions 
from the reserves and created special counterinfiltration battalions 
to assist in maintaining security in the interior. In 1969 the Koreans 
added two ranger brigades to their force structure, deploying one each 
to the two traditional hotbeds of insurgent activity in South Korea, 
the Taebaek and Chiri mountains. Meanwhile, the government resur¬ 
rected two institutions from the first guerrilla war—the combat police 


333 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


and the civilian paramilitary forces. South Korea’s paramilitary forces 
consisted of 200,000 unarmed coast watchers and an armed element 
known as the Homeland Defense Reserve. Built around a core of 
ex-servicemen, the homeland defense force numbered approximately 
two million men and women. The force guarded villages, provided 
intelligence, and mobilized the citizenry in support of the govern¬ 
ment. Finally, Park created mechanisms to ensure greater cooperation 
among his disparate security elements. The United States supported 
these endeavors with advice, training, and an infusion of new equip¬ 
ment, to include radios for paramilitary units. 3 

While Bonesteel worked to strengthen South Korea’s security 
apparatus, he did not neglect the softer side of counterinsurgency 
work—pacification. With American assistance, the South Korean 
Army revitalized its long-standing civic action program. Government 
troops dug wells, constructed schools, and undertook other actions to 
win the favor of the rural populace. Of particular note were the “medi¬ 
cal/enlightenment teams,” which traveled the countryside dispensing 
pills and propaganda in an effort to inoculate the population against 
communism. Meanwhile, in 1968 the South Korean government began 
building a series of “reconstruction villages” south of the Demilitarized 
Zone. Populated by armed ex-soldiers and their families on the model 
of Israeli kibbutzim, these settlements created yet another obstacle 
through which would-be infiltrators would have to move before they 
could attack Korean society at large. The United States also supple¬ 
mented the venerable Armed Forces Assistance to Korea program with 
new initiatives designed to foster friendship between Koreans and U.S. 
servicemen. 74 

By the end of 1969 the war against Kim II Sung’s second major 
attempt to subvert the government of South Korea had been won. 
Progressively fewer infiltrators succeeded in penetrating South Korea’s 
land and sea barriers, while Korea’s intelligence agencies, backed by a 
widespread network of military and police patrols, civilian informers, 
and paramilitary groups, snagged many of the remaining interlopers. 
Although the North had scored some stinging blows against the United 
States, ambushing some patrols, capturing the U.S. Navy intelligence 
ship Pueblo in 1968, and downing a U.S. Navy aircraft in 1969, it had 
failed to destabilize the Park regime. In a campaign that had largely fol¬ 
lowed the basic precepts of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, the United 
States and South Korea successfully thwarted Kim II Sung’s attempt to 
turn the Republic of Korea into a second Vietnam. 

While U.S. advice must be credited with a win in South Korea, the 
situation was murkier in Thailand. As one of the few nations in Asia to 


334 



The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


have escaped colonial rule and the ravages of world war, Thailand did 
not appear to be a strong candidate for Communist subversion. Thai 
culture was not conducive to revolutionary activism, and Thailand’s 
Communist Party had little mass appeal. Nevertheless, Thailand was 
neither exempt from the stresses of modernization nor devoid of social 
problems. Economic disparities, oligarchic rule, limited opportuni¬ 
ties for social mobility, and ethnic tensions offered conditions suit¬ 
able for exploitation. Of these, the last was especially important. The 
Communist Party Thailand (CPT) was itself dominated by people of 
Chinese extraction, while many of the social and economic injustices 
that existed in Thailand fell most heavily upon the ethnic minorities 
who lived along Thailand’s borders. Indeed, in many respects the insur¬ 
gent threat in Thailand was not so much a national movement as it was 
a collection of several loosely connected, regionally centered insur¬ 
gencies composed primarily of ethnic minorities, most notably Meo 
tribesmen in the north, Laotians and Vietnamese in the northeast, and 
Muslims and Malays in the south. The limited appeal of revolutionary 
propaganda among ethnic Thais would ultimately prove to be one of the 
insurgency’s greatest weaknesses. 75 (Map 13) 

Inspired by the revolutionary philosophy of Mao and Ho Chi Minh, 
the Thai Communist Party moved progressively in the early 1960s 
toward launching a revolutionary struggle. With the help of China and 
North Vietnam, which provided training and arms, the CPT officially 
embraced a strategy of rural revolutionary warfare in 1961. In 1962 the 
Communist Party established a remote jungle headquarters in north¬ 
eastern Thailand and stepped up efforts to create a united front with 
other dissident groups against the government. 

Anxious to prevent the Communist contagion that was sweeping 
Indochina from engulfing Thailand, the United States urged the Thai 
government to take prophylactic measures against the nascent insur¬ 
rection. Although few Thai officials shared America’s sense of urgency, 
they were favorably disposed to Anglo-American counterinsurgency 
theories that emphasized socioeconomic development and improved 
security. Labeled Civilian-Police-Military, the Thai program recog¬ 
nized the importance of crafting a well-integrated national response to 
the threat of insurgency. As the order of the words implied, the Thais 
believed that civilian and police measures took precedence over mili¬ 
tary action, with economic development playing the preeminent role as 
both prophylactic and cure for the Communist malaise. 7 ' 1 

In 1962 Thailand created a National Security Command to coor¬ 
dinate and direct government-wide counterinsurgency efforts. The 
command’s primary instruments in the emerging battle for the hearts 


335 



Map 13 












The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


and minds of the Thai peasantry were several American-funded Mobile 
Development Units. Each unit consisted of about 120 civilian and 
military technicians who brought social, economic, and construction 
services to insurgency-prone areas. Thailand also created a civilian 
Department ol Community Development in 1962 that sent govern¬ 
ment workers into the countryside to address local needs. Other civil¬ 
ian agencies soon joined the outreach program, as did the Royal Thai 
Army, which in 1963 established the first of several Special Operations 
Centers, 84-man units that supplemented their border patrol work with 
civic and psychological actions. Still, the focus of U.S.-Thai efforts 
remained firmly in the civil sphere, with AID and the CIA lavishing 
considerable attention on the Thai National Police and its elite sub¬ 
element, the Border Patrol Police, which like the Special Operations 
Centers sought to gain control over the nation’s fractious borders 
through a combination ol intelligence, security, and civic activities. 
In 1965 the United States reinforced these efforts by funding an 
Accelerated Rural Development program. The program’s primary focus 
was road building, but it also supported a variety of other initiatives, 
including farmer co-ops, youth activities, mobile medical teams, and 
potable water projects. 77 

Unfortunately, none of these measures succeeded in preventing the 
development of an insurgency in Thailand. In 1965 Thai Communists 
declared a people’s war of liberation and initiated guerrilla attacks on 
security forces. The outbreak of violence shocked both the Thais, who 
had downplayed the threat of an overt insurgency, and the Americans, 
who had believed that the prescribed civil-police approach was work¬ 
ing. Disturbed, the allies redoubled their efforts. The government cre¬ 
ated a Communist Suppression Operations Command to coordinate 
civilian, police, and military activities at the national level, while sub¬ 
ordinate regional and provincial organizations performed similar func¬ 
tions in areas of active insurgency. It organized Joint Security Centers 
to coordinate the collection and analysis of intelligence. With the help 
of American largess, Thai security forces continued to expand their 
nation-building activities, building 150 schools, 463 kilometers of road, 
101 bridges, 49 irrigation canals, 21 wells, 2 regional development cen¬ 
ters, and scores of medical aid stations by 1968. Finally, at American 
urging, the Thais greatly increased efforts to provide security to the 
population living in insurgent areas. In some cases this meant encour¬ 
aging people to leave guerrilla-infested regions. In others, particularly 
in the north, the government forcibly resettled civilians. Most impor¬ 
tantly, AID and the CIA worked to expand the number and capability 
of Thai police and paramilitary forces. 


337 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A Thai Mobile Development Unit accompanied by an 
American adviser visits a village. 


Initially, the government relied primarily on the police rather than 
the military to combat the insurgents. The police arrested suspects, 
established stations in remote villages, and conducted short-duration 
sweeps. Still the insurgency grew, and by 1967 the army was playing 
a more active role. In the northeast, the Thais attempted to surround 
guerrilla base areas with paramilitary-secured villages backed by rapid 
reaction forces. In the north, the military adopted a more punitive 
approach, attacking villages and burning crops. In all guerrilla areas 
the army conducted occasional search-and-destroy operations, usually 
on a small scale but occasionally in division strength. These activities 
frequently failed to produce decisive results. A lack of aggressiveness 
hampered operations, as did the Thai government’s distaste for suf¬ 
fering casualties. When fighting the Meo, whom the Thais regarded 
as savages, the military was also prone to engage in heavy-handed 
tactics that alienated the population. Moreover, the army’s interest in 
the counterguerrilla war was spasmodic, as the military still preferred 
to let the police and civic action programs carry most of the burden. 
Conventional defense duties, coupled with the fact that Thai authori¬ 
ties kept much of the army tied down around Bangkok as counter¬ 
coup troops, further constrained military activities, as did financial 
considerations that limited the amount of time Thailand could afford 
to put its soldiers in the field. The result was that prior to the early 
1970s, the army never committed more than 25 percent of its strength 


338 



The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


to counterinsurgency activities. Most military operations were of short 
duration and failed to establish an effective government presence in 
guerrilla regions. 78 

In 1973 student and labor unrest in Bangkok introduced a period of 
greater democracy in Thailand. The experiment was turbulent, however, 
and failed to produce any reduction in the insurgent movement that had 
grown steadily from a few hundred guerrillas in 1965 to around 6,500 
combatants by 1974. Thanks to Chinese aid, the guerrillas were well 
led, well trained, and frequently better armed than government troops. 
The situation took a further turn for the worse in 1976, when a coup 
ushered in a reactionary regime that reversed Thailand’s tentative steps 
toward a more democratic system. Thousands of leftist and prodemoc¬ 
racy students fled to the bush, swelling insurgent ranks to over 12,000 
guerrillas. Though the government remained in control throughout 
most of the country, the war was clearly not going well." 

The United States provided military assistance to Thailand through 
the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group, which in 1962 was subor¬ 
dinated to the Military Assistance Command, Thailand (MACTHAI). 
By the late 1960s the American presence in Thailand had grown to 
about 49,000 military personnel, the vast majority of whom provided 
logistical and air support for the wars in Laos and Vietnam. Other than 
performing limited civic action activities around their bases, most 
Americans played no role in Thailand’s internal disorders. The U.S. 
Army’s contribution to Thailand’s internal defenses included an engi¬ 
neer battalion that built roads, a psychological operations company 
that performed propaganda work, and about 130 advisers who helped 
train the Royal Thai Army for both conventional and counterguerrilla 
missions. In 1966 the Army also posted a Special Forces company in 
Thailand to provide counterinsurgency training to army and police per¬ 
sonnel. Although U.S. advisers were permitted to accompany Thai units 
during field operations at the battalion level, they did so as observers 
only, and except for a brief period in 1966-1967 when U.S. Army heli¬ 
copter pilots flew transport missions, U.S. military personnel did not 
participate in internal security operations. 8 " 

The advice American military officials gave Thailand generally 
conformed to both U.S. national counterinsurgency policy and U.S. 
Army doctrine. Mirroring the tenets of contemporary counterinsur¬ 
gency philosophy, U.S. military officers accepted the notion that the 
best way to respond to Thailand’s incipient insurgency was through a 
coordinated, government-wide program of socioeconomic develop¬ 
ment backed by improved police, paramilitary, intelligence, and mili¬ 
tary systems. Thailand’s conventionally oriented officer corps initially 


339 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A U.S. adviser instructs Thai soldiers in counterguerrilla icarfare. 


showed little interest in counterinsurgency, but with JUSMAG’s help 
the Thais established a counterguerrilla training program based on 
American models. Recognizing that “machines of war can conquer 
land, but communist ideology aims at conquering people,” JUSMAG 
emphasized the importance of integrated politico-military operations, 
in which police, military, and intelligence activities would be blended 
with population-control and civil improvement measures to separate the 
population from the guerrillas. Small-unit patrols, ambushes, decep¬ 
tion, and night operations formed the backbone of JUSMAG’s tactical 
precepts. On the other hand, JUSMAG warned in 1961 that “massive 
uses of firepower . . . large armored formations and air bombardment; 
and massive logistical support to include heavy wheeled, track and air 
transportation” were “not useable in anti-guerrilla warfare.” 81 

The Army’s influence was limited, however. Graham Martin, the 
U.S. ambassador to Thailand from 1963 to 1967, was anxious to avoid 
an over militarization of American policy in Thailand, a phenomenon 
that he and many other civilians believed had occurred in Vietnam. 
Consequently, Martin made the CIA the lead agency in most coun¬ 
terinsurgency matters. Moreover, unlike many other ambassadors in 
the 1960s, Martin moved beyond the rather loose coordinative efforts 
of most country teams and imposed a single manager for American 
counterinsurgency programs in Thailand. Although the Army tradi¬ 
tionally supported greater unity of effort, in this case the arrangement 
worked to limit its influence. Martin appointed a veteran CIA official 


340 




The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


with experience in Vietnam, Peer de Silva, as his special assistant for 
counterinsurgency, and together they kept a tight rein over American 
military activities in Thailand. They severely limited contact between 
U.S. officers and senior Thai officials and restricted MACTHAI’s 
involvement in Thai counterinsurgency programs. Thus, while U.S. 
Army personnel acquainted the Thai Army with American doctrine, 
they had comparatively little direct influence on the broader course of 
the counterinsurgency campaign. 82 

Many embassy civilians considered the tethering of the U.S. military 
establishment in Thailand to have been a bureaucratic triumph. It did not, 
however, spare the counterinsurgency effort from discord. Civilian agen¬ 
cies were just as jealous of their bureaucratic prerogatives as the military, 
and their deep resentment of the single manager concept eventually led to 
the abolishment of the special assistant for counterinsurgency post after 
only a few years. Furthermore, in Thailand as elsewhere, U.S. officials 
soon found that the national consensus over counterinsurgency was broad 
but not deep, and throughout the 1960s U.S. diplomatic, intelligence, 
economic, and police personnel were constantly at loggerheads with each 
other over the details of the Thai campaign. 

Bureaucratic rivalries among U.S. officials were matched by similar 
tensions among the Thais. The creation of coordinative bodies notwith¬ 
standing, Thai government agencies frequently expended more energy 
maneuvering for power and prestige than they did fighting the enemy. 
The resultant discord between competing political, philosophical, and 
bureaucratic agendas produced a confusing medley of overlapping 
and competing programs. By 1974 the Thai government had launched 
approximately 120 different socioeconomic development programs, 
initiated 12 major security initiatives, and organized 20 different types 
of paramilitary forces. As in South Vietnam, such a cacophony of pro¬ 
grams merely dissipated the impact of U.S. aid. 83 

Continuous infighting was not the only problem. As in all advisory 
experiences, U.S. soldiers and diplomats were often frustrated by the 
unwillingness of Thai officials to take their recommendations to heart. 
Despite American advice and their own doctrine, Thai security forces 
occasionally abused civilians, fired indiscriminately, and demonstrated 
other undesirable behaviors. Inertia, funding limitations, and programmat¬ 
ic problems likewise had adverse roles to play. Yet the lackluster perfor¬ 
mance of the Thai campaign also revealed some defects in U.S. policy. 

If the U.S. government’s inability to impose discipline over its 
counterinsurgency programs was one aspect of the problem, America’s 
efforts in Thailand also suffered from the opposite defect, a tendency 
of many officials to apply a single, universal formula regardless of 


341 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

local circumstances. In Thailand, efforts by U.S. civilians to impose 
their view that insurgency was largely a civil and police, not a military, 
problem ran headlong into the hard realities of Thai politics, which 
demanded the careful balancing of rival bureaucratic interests, par¬ 
ticularly between the army and police. Failure to adjust to this reality 
caused many U.S.-backed programs to wither on the vine." 4 

Many of the assumptions of U.S. social engineers also proved false. 
Contrary to theory, Thai efforts to expand the government’s presence 
in the countryside failed to stop the spread of Communist influence. In 
part this was because the $223.8 million the United States and Thailand 
spent on development programs between 1960 and 1974 was insufficient 
to address Thailand’s socioeconomic needs. At times the concentration 
of aid on a few model villages encouraged feelings of jealousy and 
discontent among neighboring towns that did not receive such atten¬ 
tion. Yet even villages that received aid did not always respond in a 
positive manner. This was because development administrators, anxious 
to accomplish something, often ignored doctrinal precepts about the 
importance of winning community collaboration and imposed projects 
without taking into consideration the needs, desires, or capabilities of 
people themselves. Villagers did not necessarily enjoy the greater atten¬ 
tion lavished upon them by officials either. Indeed, one of the ironies of 
the Thai program is that government outreach efforts actually created 
more dissent than had existed before, both by increasing contact between 
the rural population and inept officials and by making the peasants more 
aware of their socioeconomic backwardness, thereby creating a revolu¬ 
tion of rising expectations where none had previously existed/ " 

Although beyond the chronological scope of this book, Thailand 
eventually defeated the insurgency in the early 1980s. The Thais would 
take great pride that they defeated the insurgents after the United States 
withdrew virtually all of its military and police personnel in the mid- 
1970s. Many Thais believed that their victory resulted from their aban¬ 
doning U.S. doctrine, with one story claiming that the high command 
burned all its U.S. textbooks. While the Thais had a right to be proud 
of their accomplishment, the fact was that they continued to embrace 
the counterinsurgency concept that Americans had helped fashion in 
the 1960s and early 1970s. Nor did they ever free themselves from the 
influence of U.S. doctrine, as U.S. Army manuals continued to be stan¬ 
dard fare in Thailand’s military schools, most of which were themselves 
closely patterned on their U.S. counterparts. 

Despite the apocryphal book burning, Thai success was not so 
much due to the development of completely new ideas than to the fact 
that the Thais eventually became more proficient at executing the old 


342 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 



U.S. Army engineers build a school in Thailand. 


ones. Over time the Thais initiated a more effective village government 
and self-defense program that expanded the government’s presence 
in disaffected areas in an oil-spot fashion. The Army became more 
circumspect in using firepower, the paramilitaries became more effec¬ 
tive, and government coordination of the total counterinsurgency effort 
improved. Although the government cracked down hard on dissidents, 
it also offered the insurgents amnesty, stepped up its propaganda initia¬ 
tives, and undertook measures to improve the quality of the officials 
that it sent into dissident areas. None of these endeavors were flaw¬ 
less, and many of the old problems continued to plague Thai efforts. 
Nevertheless, the Thais eventually became sufficiently proficient at 
implementing the doctrinal concepts of the 1960s to achieve a signifi¬ 
cant, if belated, victory over the insurgents A 

While socioeconomic development remained an integral part of 
post-1975 Thai counterinsurgency efforts, it was not in itself the cause 
of victory. Thailand was ultimately much more successful in improv¬ 
ing rural security through military and paramilitary measures than it 
was in improving rural administration and development. The Thais 
also recognized that many U.S. aid programs had been misguided in 
that they had spent millions of dollars trying to correct economic ills 
that, while real, were not always the true cause of unrest. Instead, the 
Thais decided that political and social issues were more important fac¬ 
tors than mere poverty alone. Ultimately, their success rested not on 
the introduction of significant socioeconomic reforms, but on political 


343 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


measures designed to rebuild a consensus within the country (which 
continued to be dominated by military men who rejected Western-style 
democracy), limited civic actions, and extensive security and popula¬ 
tion-control activities. 87 

There was, however, one other factor in the government’s eventual 
success—perhaps the most important. In an odd twist of fate, America’s 
defeat in Vietnam and the simultaneous triumph of Communist forces 
in Cambodia and Laos undermined the insurgency in Thailand. The fall 
of Thailand’s neighbors to communism finally galvanized the govern¬ 
ment to take its own insurgency seriously. The genocide campaign that 
the Communists instituted in Cambodia particularly aided the Thai gov¬ 
ernment in that it discredited communism in the eyes of many Thais. 
Finally, squabbles among Thailand’s Communist neighbors fatally 
weakened the Thai Communist movement. Vietnam’s 1978 invasion 
of Cambodia and China’s subsequent falling out with Vietnam led to a 
serious division in Communist ranks. The war in Cambodia—which at 
times spilled over the border into Thailand itself—stirred Thai nation¬ 
alism and reinforced the government’s claim that the Thai Communist 
Party was the tool of foreign aggressors. The turmoil in Cambodia also 
cut the guerrillas off from one of their traditional external sanctuaries. 
Meanwhile, China and Laos, anxious to find allies against Vietnamese 
expansionism, courted the Thai government by terminating their aid to 
Thailand’s Communist Party. 

The loss of external aid and sanctuaries proved just as catastrophic 
for Thai Communists as it had for the Greek Communists in 1949. 
Divided internally between rival Leninist and Maoist camps, increas¬ 
ingly perceived by the population as being foreign puppets, and cut off 
from outside assistance, the Communists withered under the govern¬ 
ment’s suppression campaign. Discouraged and disillusioned, many 
of the students who had joined the insurgency in the mid-1970s took 
advantage of government amnesty offers and surrendered. Population 
security efforts, backed by civic and psychological actions, increasingly 
cut the guerrillas off from the inhabitants, while a series of major offen¬ 
sives in the late 1970s and early 1980s overran one guerrilla base area 
after another. With no place left to run, guerrilla numbers plummeted, 
and by the mid-1980s there were only a few hundred armed dissidents 
left in the bush. 88 


The Advisory Experience in Retrospect 

The unsatisfactory results achieved in Thailand by 1975, together 
with the fall of Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam to communism in 


344 




The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


that same year, led many commentators to conclude that U.S. policy 
in general, and Army doctrine in particular, was fatally flawed. Yet the 
three unfortunate stepchildren of French Indochina were also the only 
U.S. allies between 1950 and 1975 to fall to Communist revolutions, 
a tact that would seem to indicate that Americas defeat in Indochina 
was the result of factors unique to that region rather than to U.S. doc¬ 
trine in general. In truth, both interpretations have merit, for while 
the Indochina states suffered from an unusually unfavorable set of 
circumstances, many of the difficulties experienced there were also 
present to different degrees in the majority of successful counterinsur¬ 
gencies. Thus the Army’s experience in Vietnam, while exceptional in 
many respects, also reflected problems inherent in the United States’ 
approach to counterinsurgency. 

America’s experience in overseas counterinsurgency during the 
1960s and 1970s revealed that many of the tenets of nation-building 
theory were somewhat tenuous. First among these was the assumption 
that improved economic conditions would inevitably foster stability. 
In practice, economic development programs often failed to redress 
popular grievances. In fact, they sometimes aggravated them, either 
by unduly raising expectations, by accentuating disparities in wealth 
between regions or classes, or by accelerating unsettling socioeco¬ 
nomic changes. Poorly executed programs that brought uncaring or 
incompetent government representatives into closer contact with the 
people also turned out to be worse than no programs at all. The forma¬ 
tion of middle classes likewise failed to promote the spread of demo¬ 
cratic values. Thus many members of the middle class in Latin America 
adopted the interests and attitudes of the old aristocracy, while in Iran, 
the middle class joined with the majority of the people in rejecting 
modernization in favor of more traditional cultural values. Ultimately, 
even Rostow had to admit that “as for the linkage between economic 
development and the emergence of stable political democracies, we 
may, in retrospect, have been a bit too hopeful.” 89 

A second assumption that appeared misguided was that American- 
style democracy was both an exportable commodity and a necessary 
and effective weapon against insurgency. In many cases America’s 
allies had defeated communism without instituting substantially more 
democratic political systems. On the other hand, programs designed 
to promote American-style political pluralism could backfire if they 
detracted from the type of unity of effort and control essential for the 
survival of a besieged government. American concepts of governance 
also did not often translate well into other cultures. Historian Daniel 
Boorstin had warned of this phenomenon in 1953, arguing that “if we 


345 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


rely on the ‘philosophy of American democracy’ as a weapon in the 
world-wide struggle, we are relying on a weapon which may prove to be 
a dud.” According to Boorstin, this was because democratic institutions 
“always grow out-of-doors in a particular climate and cannot be car¬ 
ried about in a flower pot.” Time and again, U.S. policy makers would 
discover the truth in Boorstin’s words, as American-style values and 
institutions withered after being transplanted to the infertile soils and 
inhospitable climates that characterized many countries. If democracy 
is to flourish, it must be carefully cultivated and nourished over a long 
period of time under appropriate conditions, not hastily imposed in the 
midst of a crisis. 90 

A related assumption that proved questionable was that outsiders 
could properly diagnose the ills of a foreign society. Often U.S. social 
engineers approached their tasks with a dangerous mixture of naivete, 
ethnocentrism, and hubris that hampered their activities. Ambassador 
Ellsworth Bunker’s advice to South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen 
Cao Ky that “people are drifting toward communism because they are 
poor. If you give the people everything they want—television sets, 
automobiles, and so on—none of them will go over to communism,” 
reflected the type of simplistic and materialistic philosophy that all too 
many nation builders applied to their work. ' 1 Unfortunately, the issues 
were usually more complicated than televisions and automobiles. In 
fact, many U.S. nation builders were surprised to find that the peoples 
of the world were not as eager for the fruits of Western-style modernity 
as the creed of rising expectations had led them to believe. After many 
disappointing experiences, Army doctrine writers eventually had to 
admit that one of the greatest obstacles to “progress” was indigenous 
people’s “satisfaction with the existing way of life.” The revolution of 
rising expectations thus proved to be as much myth as reality, a projec¬ 
tion of modern Western values onto a non-Western, tradition-minded 
world. With expectations lagging, U.S. soldiers primed with the notion 
that development was the key to dampening revolutionary ardor were 
placed in the dubious position of having to impose projects on people 
for their own good, a tricky proposition given doctrine’s insistence that 
nation builders respect the values and desires of the population. 92 

More training in the social sciences might have helped U.S. civil 
and military officials negotiate the complexities of social engineering, 
but this was not practical for the vast majority of soldiers charged with 
nation-building responsibilities. Besides, social scientists themselves 
were divided as to the best nation-building methods, and their varied 
and sometimes conflicting theories usually failed to provide adequate 
road maps for practitioners in the field. All too often, American nation 


346 




The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


builders—civilian and military alike—ended up like so many sorcerer’s 
apprentices, vainly struggling to direct vast and mysterious forces that 
they could neither fully comprehend nor control. 93 

Even when U.S. personnel were fairly sure of their methods, they 
often ran into yet another intractable problem—their inability to compel 
foreign governments to take their advice. Time after time, indigenous 
authorities ignored American prescriptions. U.S. officials had always 
recognized that the indigenous elites that controlled many foreign gov¬ 
ernments would have a vested interest in opposing change, yet no one 
could come up with a sure way to overcome such resistance. Better- 
trained advisory personnel with more language and cultural skills might 
have helped increase U.S. influence, as could longer tours of duty. This 
was especially true in Vietnam, where the Army insisted on limiting 
most advisory tours to one year, with many personnel serving no more 
than six months in any given post. The rotation policy was based on 
the premise that shorter tours were more equitable and healthier (both 
physically and emotionally) than long assignments. Unfortunately, the 
policy also disrupted continuity, impeded the development of perspec¬ 
tive and understanding, and weakened interpersonal relationships with 
Vietnamese counterparts. On the other hand, agencies that used longer 
tours of duty, like the State Department, AID, and the CIA, often had 
just as much trouble as the Army in convincing foreign officials to fol¬ 
low their advice, so longer tours alone were not the answer. 94 

One potential solution was leverage—using threats of unfavorable 
action, or even the suspension of aid, to prod a reluctant ally into action. 
Sometimes leverage worked, sometimes not. Moreover, U.S. officials 
were frequently divided over how far they should push a sovereign, 
independent government over matters that pertained to its internal 
affairs. By the time of the Vietnam War the Army had embraced the 
view that its advisory personnel should avoid adopting uncompro¬ 
mising tones when proffering advice. Many individuals would later 
criticize this policy as being ineffective, and certainly it exacted a high 
price, as when General Westmoreland decided to sacrifice desperately 
needed cohesiveness by not pressing the South Vietnamese to accept a 
combined military command under U.S. control. Yet there were limits 
both as to how far the United States could pressure a proud people like 
the Vietnamese, as well as to how much responsibility the United States 
was willing to assume over the affairs of another country. Ironically, 
U.S. officials soon learned that the more involved they became in 
keeping a foreign government afloat, the less leverage they had, as the 
receiving state often assumed that the United States would not do any¬ 
thing that might jeopardize the survival of the allied government. This 


347 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


assumption did not always prove correct, as South Vietnam ultimately 
discovered, yet it paid off enough times to encourage recalcitrant 
regimes to resist unpalatable American initiatives/'" 

The frustration that U.S. diplomatic and military personnel 
experienced over their inability to influence indigenous governments 
sometimes produced pressure for a quick fix, usually in the guise of 
a change of leadership. This had been the lesson Secretary of State 
Dean Acheson had drawn from the China debacle, and favorable com¬ 
mand changes in Greece and the Philippines had indeed helped pave 
the road to success in those countries. Seeking progress through a 
change of leadership was not an unreasonable proposition, and con¬ 
sequently the Kennedy administration had incorporated the notion 
into the Overseas Internal Defense Policy. But such changes were not 
always possible. They were not a panacea either, as was demonstrated 
when Diem’s assassination plunged South Vietnam into a lengthy 
period of instability. 

If a reluctance on the part of many governments to heed U.S. 
advice was a weakness, so too was the difficulty that the United States 
had in giving that advice in a clear and consistent manner. Part of the 
difficulty was the age-old problem of coordinating the activities of 
multiple, independent bureaucracies, each with its own mission and 
agenda. The United States never developed an effective way to inte¬ 
grate and direct counterinsurgency activities at the national level. At 
the country level, several integrative mechanisms were tried, but none 
turned out to be entirely satisfactory. The result was that the doctrinal 
ideal of a closely integrated politico-military program was often dif¬ 
ficult to obtain. 

Another aspect of this problem was the vagueness inherent in U.S. 
counterinsurgency doctrine itself. The official statement of national 
doctrine, the OIDP, had done little more than establish overarching 
concepts. It left the implementing details to the agencies themselves. 
Some agencies, like the Army, had expended much effort in developing 
and disseminating doctrinal materials to their members. Other agencies 
had not. Moreover, no single agency could impose its precepts on the 
others, while the single national-level coordinative body, the Special 
Group (Counterinsurgency), had proved a weak vessel. Since everyone 
accepted the broad tenets associated with the nation-building doctrine, 
the perils of this situation had not been truly apparent until U.S. policy 
was put to the test in the field, at which point the fissures became 
evident as agency feuded with agency and individuals within agencies 
argued with each other over exactly how to apply the broad precepts 
established by the OIDP and various manuals. 


348 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


More definitive organizational arrangements and doctrinal materi¬ 
als at both the national and agency level would have helped alleviate the 
confusion. Yet there were also advantages to be gained by vagueness, 
as it encouraged experimentation and flexibility. Dogmatic adherence 
to stated principles could just as well lead to problems as a lack of 
doctrinal clarity. Such a situation occurred in several countries where 
U.S. officials had pressed their indigenous counterparts to assign key 
counterinsurgency roles to civilian (police and paramilitary) organiza¬ 
tions on the premise that counterinsurgency was primarily a political 
and civil—not military—affair. Unfortunately, what sounded good in 
theory was unsatisfactory in practice, as a combination of historical and 
institutional factors often made such an arrangement either impolitic or 
unfeasible. This was particularly true in states where military organi¬ 
zations were more powerful than civilian ones. The result in Thailand, 
South Vietnam, and some Latin American countries was that vital paci¬ 
fication, population security, and counterinfrastructure functions were 
poorly accomplished because the assigned civilian agencies lacked the 
talent, resources, or bureaucratic clout to perform them effectively. 
Ultimately, American counterinsurgents of the 1960s and 1970s found 
that counterinsurgency was more art than science. No one formulation 
could fit all circumstances, and any attempt to force local conditions to 
conform to preconceived doctrinal or philosophical notions was bound 
for trouble. 96 

Another critical assumption that frequently proved incorrect was 
that recipients of aid would necessarily behave more favorably toward 
their benefactors. As General Williams had suggested, guerrilla intimi¬ 
dation certainly dissuaded many potentially friendly people from help¬ 
ing the government, yet other forces also played a role. Thus a combi¬ 
nation of political, cultural, and nationalistic factors caused America’s 
popularity to decline in Iran and Latin America during the 1960s and 
1970s despite the disbursement of billions of dollars to those regions. 
As diplomat George Kennan had observed in 1954, “even benevolence, 
when addressed to a foreign people, represents a form of intervention 
into their internal affairs, and always receives, at best, a divided recep¬ 
tion.” Unfortunately, unqualified assertions by some hearts-and-minds 
enthusiasts about the virtues of civic action had not prepared U.S. sol¬ 
diers for this reality." 7 

The frequent inability of nation-building activities to effect mea¬ 
surable structural or behavioral change, as well as the difficulty which 
U.S. officials had in persuading indigenous governments to implement 
meaningful reforms, meant that coercion would play the predominant 
role in most U.S.-backed counterinsurgency efforts. This certainly was 


349 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


true in Vietnam, where the government’s many failings rendered force 
the only effective tool. Indeed, virtually all of the government’s gains in 
terms of pacification, security, and population control after 1967 were 
directly attributable to the application of military might, not political 
and social action. Eventually, increasing numbers of people sided with 
the government not because they loved it, but because it was increas¬ 
ingly dangerous not to do so, because the luster had worn off the 
enemy’s image of invincibility, and because they were simply tired of 
the war and wanted to side with the apparent winner. 9 " 

This phenomenon was repeated in many other countries around 
the world. From Thailand to Guatemala, “positive programs” of civic 
action, nation building, and reform had failed to win the day. True 
structural reforms were too difficult to effect under most third world 
insurgency conditions, while most civic actions were too superficial 
to have anything other than a transitory effect. No credible evidence 
emerged from the 1960s and 1970s to suggest that military civic action 
had significantly contributed to American nation-building goals, not 
just in Latin America, but anywhere in the world. All this did not mean 
that carefully crafted psychological and civic action programs could not 
influence perceptions and behavior by alleviating suffering, introduc¬ 
ing modest improvements, and generally demonstrating government 
goodwill. But the expansive claims made by modernization theorists as 
to the ability of social reforms to quell an insurgency had proved exag¬ 
gerated. Even the vaunted MEDCAP program had failed to generate 
widespread conversions to the Saigon government’s cause. 99 

The nation’s experiences during the 1960s and 1970s in assisting 
foreign governments in countering internal disorder thus bequeathed 
the Army a complex legacy. On the one hand, civilian theorists and 
Army doctrine writers alike had been correct in asserting that military 
means needed to be subordinated to political ends and that some man¬ 
ner of reform was usually necessary to guarantee peace and stability 
into the future. General Ridgway’s warnings as to the potential haz¬ 
ards of trying to save a hopelessly disorganized and unpopular regime 
through military power had also been prophetic. Yet American theorists 
had fallen short on two fronts. First, they had never truly come to grips 
with the fact that the modernization process was itself destabilizing and 
that policies designed to promote change were not always compatible 
with the maintenance of internal order and stability. More often than 
not, the United States would resolve this contradiction by choosing 
stability over reform, for when push came to shove, U.S. policy makers 
generally found a friendly repressive government to be preferable to a 
Communist one. Second, many American theorists had asserted a far 


350 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


too expansive view of the ability of civil measures to combat an active 
insurgency. Although some soldiers had adopted this view, mainstream 
Army doctrine had been correct in portraying civic action as an impor¬ 
tant, yet ancillary, weapon."’ 0 Traditional Army doctrine had also been 
correct in postulating that significant social progress could be achieved 
only after military and police operations had succeeded in establishing 
effective control over the countryside. Ultimately, experience demon¬ 
strated that military success was just as necessary in counterinsurgency 
as in conventional warfare. 


351 


Notes 


1 Cuba also fell during this period to a revolutionary movement that the United States 
did not initially perceive as communistic. The Cuban government received little U.S. 
support. 

2 Stephen Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North 
Carolina Press, 1988), pp. 141—49. 

3 Quote from State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], 
1961-63, vol. 12, American Republics (Washington, D.C.: Government Publishing 
Office, 1996), p. 174. Tony Smith, “The Alliance for Progress: The 1960s,” in Exporting 
Democracy, the United States and Latin America, ed. Abraham Lowenthal (Baltimore, 
Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 72; Howard Wiarda, “Did the Alliance 
‘Lose Its Way,’ or Were Its Assumptions All Wrong from the Beginning and Are Those 
Assumptions Still with Us?” in The Alliance for Progress: A Retrospective, ed. L. 
Ronald Scheman (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1988), pp. 97-99; Stephen Rabe, The 
Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution 
in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), p. 151. 

4 Quote from Barber and Romiing, Internal Security, p. 45, and see also pp. 37, 
44. FRUS, 1961-63, 12:231; Cole Blasier, The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to 
Revolutionary Change in Latin America, 1910—1985 (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of 
Pittsburgh Press, 1985), table 11; Frank Pancake, “Military Assistance as an Element 
of United States Foreign Policy in Latin America, 1950-68” (Ph.D. diss., University of 
Virginia, 1969), pp. 109-13, 131; Brian Smith, “United States-Latin American Military 
Relations Since World War II: Implications for Human Rights,” in Human Rights and 
Basic Needs in the Americas, ed. Margaret Crahan (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown 
University Press, 1982), pp. 265-66. 

5 FRUS, 1961-63, 12:197-202, 215; Rpt, HQDA, Feb 62, sub: Cold War Activities, 
pp. V-3 to V-5, Historians files, CMH; Rabe, Most Dangerous, p. 133. 

6 Ltr, Gen Palmer to D. Sprague, 29 Apr 60, Historians files, CMH; Pancake, 
“Military Assistance,” p. 154; FRUS, 1961-63, 12:215-16; Miles Wolpin, Military Aid 
and Counterrevolution in the Third World (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1972), 

pp. 60-61. 

7 Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp. 316-19, 330-31, 340^41; Georges Fauriol, ed., Latin 
American Insurgencies (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1985), 
pp. 13-16; Timothy Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America 
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 20-30. 

8 Fauriol, Latin American Insurgencies, pp. 16, 134, 172; James Kohl and John Litt, 
Urban Guerrilla Warfare in Latin America (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology Press, 1974), pp. 10, 15-27; Enrique Codo, “The Urban Guerrilla,” Military 
Review 51 (August 1971): 3-10; Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp. 343^44. 

9 Gary Arnold, “IMET in Latin America,” Military Review 67 (February 1987): 33; 
Smith, “United States-Latin American Military Relations,” pp. 269-70, 292ns29, 30, 
32; “U.S. Army School of the Americas,” Military Review 50 (April 1970): 88-93. 

10 Rpt, Col Joy K. Vallery, c. 1965, sub: Debriefing Report, pp. 21-22, 39,49,400.318 
U.S. Assistance, Geo G Colombia, CMH; McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft, pp. 
223, 527^31; Pancake, “Military Assistance,” pp. 162-63. 


352 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


Dennis Rempe, Guerrillas, Bandits, and Independent Republics: United States 
Counter-Insurgency Efforts in Colombia, 1959-1965,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 
6 (Winter 1995): 305-11; Richard Maullin, Soldiers, Guerrillas, and Politics in 
Colombia (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1973), p. 68; Memo, JCS for Special Group 
(Counterinsurgency), 12 Mar 62, sub: Report of Visit to Colombia, South America, 
by a Team from Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, N.C., with atch Memo, Brig Gen 
Yarborough for Distribution, 26 Feb 62, sub: Visit to Colombia, South America, by a 
Team from Special Warfare Center, LIC, National Security Archives, Washington, D.C. 

Maullin, Soldiers, Guerrillas, and Politics in Colombia, pp. 69-75; Rempe, 
“Guerrillas, Bandits, and Independent Republics,” pp. 313-21; Rpt, Vallery, c. 1965, 
sub: Debriefing Report, pp. 18, 52, 57; Keith Nusbaum, “Bandidos,” Military Review’ 43 
(July 1963): 23-25; Clark Irving, “Internal Defense Operations in Colombia—a Success 
Story” (Student thesis, AWC, 1967), p. 15. 

Blaufarb and Tanham, Who Will Win? pp. 97-99; Caesar Sereseres, “Military 
Development and the United States Military Assistance Program for Latin America: The 
Case of Guatemala, 1961-69“ (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Riverside, 1971), 
pp. 238-43; Wayne Kirkbride, Special Forces in Latin America: from Bull Simons to 
Just Cause (Wayne Kirkbride, 1991), pp. 60-61, 84; Thomas Rogers, “The Military 
and Nation Building in Guatemala” (Student thesis, AWC, 1967), p. 6; Luigi Einaudi 
and Alfred Stepan, Latin American Institutional Development: Changing Military 
Perspectives in Peru and Brazil, R-586-DOS (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1971), 
pp. 25-26; Luis Vega, Guerrillas in Latin America , trans. Daniel Weissbort (New York: 
Frederick A. Praeger, 1969), pp. 84-85, 173-87; Lloyd Picou, “The Effectiveness of 
Stability Operations in Eliminating Insurgency in Peru” (Student thesis, AWC, 1968), 
pp. 23-24, 29-33; Gen Andrew O’Meara, “CINCSOUTH Plans and Problems,” AWC 
lecture, 13 Dec 63, pp. 7-8, MHI. 

14 Vincent Lopez, “What the U.S. Army Should Do About Urban Guerrilla Warfare” 
(Student thesis, AWC, 1975), p. 24; Blaufarb and Tanham, Who Will Win? pp. 101-02. 

15 Maullin, Soldiers, Guerrillas, and Politics in Colombia , pp. 55, 60-68; Einaudi 
and Stepan, Latin American Institutional Development, pp. 22-25, 81-85; Smith, 
“United States-Latin American Military Relations,” pp. 266-67; J. Bina Machado, 
“The Making of Brazilian Staff Officers,” Military Review’ 50 (April 1970): 75-81; 
Anthony Auletta, “Ten-Nation Progress Report,” Army 13 (July 1963): 53; Brian Jenkins 
and Caesar Sereseres, “United States Military Assistance and the Guatemalan Armed 
Forces,” Armed Forces and Society 3 (Summer 1977): 580; Rogers, “Military and Nation 
Building,” pp. 7-11; Walterhouse, A Time To Build , pp. 99-102. 

16 FRUS, 1961-63, 12:205; Memo, SGS for Gen Eddleman, 27 Apr 61, sub: Plan To 
Step Up Latin American Attendance in Counter-guerrilla Training Activities, 370.64, 
CSA, 1955-62, RG 319, NARA; Jerome Levinson and Juan de Onis, The Alliance 
That Lost Its Way (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), pp. 241-42; Rpt, U.S. Southern 
Command, c. 1965, sub: Civic Action Projects Report, 1 March 1964-1 January 1965, 
History Office, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C. (hereafter 
as USASOC/HO). 

17 Quote from U.S. Southern Command Historical Report, Calendar Year (CY) 63, p. 
v-20, copy in CMH. Memo, Gen George Lincoln, 8 Nov 65, sub: Memorandum of Notes 
Concerning “Internal Security,” pp. 1-7, Historians files, CMH. 

18 Maullin, Soldiers, Guerrillas, and Politics in Colombia, pp. 69, 70-79; U.S. 
Southern Command Annual History, 1964, pp. v-22, v-23, viii-3, copy in CMH; Rpt, 


353 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


DCSOPS, 31 Dec 63, sub: A Review of the Civic Action Program, pp. 5-6, Historians 
files, CMH; Edward Glick, “Military Civic Action: Thorny Art of the Peace Keepers,” 
Army 17 (September 1967): 70; Liza Gross, Handbook of Leftist Guerrilla Groups 
in Latin America and the Caribbean (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 29, 
145-49; Memo, Dir of Intelligence and Research, State Department, for Secy of State, 
23 Oct 67, sub: Guatemala: A Counter-Insurgency Running Wild? National Security 
Archives, Washington, D.C.; Kenneth Johnson, Guatemala: From Terrorism to Terror 
(London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1972), pp. 14, 17. 

19 First quote from FRUS, 1961-63, 12:174. Second quote from Martin Massoglia, 
Military Civic Action, Evaluation of Military Techniques, 2 vols. (Research Triangle 
Institute, 1971), 2:iv-4. Abraham Lowenthal and J. Samuel Fitch, eds., Armies and 
Politics in Latin America (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986), pp. 3-4; David Hughes, 
“The Myth of Military Coups and Military Assistance,” Military Review’ 47 (December 

1967) : 3-9; Rabe, Most Dangerous, pp. 141—44. 

211 Martin Needier, The United States and the Latin American Revolution (Los 
Angeles: University of California, 1977), pp. 48, 51; Frances Foland, “Agrarian Reform 
in Latin America,” Foreign Affairs 48 (October 1969): 97-112; Lowenthal, Exporting 
Democracy, pp. 79-80. For varying assessments of the role of force and political action 
in Latin insurgencies, see David Ronfeldt and Luigi Einaudi, Internal Security and 
Military Assistance to Latin America in the 1970s: A First Statement, R-924-ISA (Santa 
Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1971), pp. 16, 18, 24-30; Laqueur, Guerrilla, p. 318; Barber and 
Ronning, Internal Security, pp. viii-ix; Rabe, Most Dangerous, pp. 148-72. 

21 Jeffrey Clarke, Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965-1973, United States 
Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988), pp. 
213, 251; Spector, Early Years, pp. 353, 371; Eric Bergerud, The Dynamics of Defeat: 
The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 
3, 327. 

Dale Andrade, Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War 
(Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1990), pp. 38-41; Boyd Bashore, “Diem’s 
Counterinsurgency Strategy for Vietnam: Right or Wrong?” (Student thesis, AWC, 

1968) , pp. 4-7. 

22 MacDonald, Outline History, pp. 23-24; William Duiker, The Communist Road to 
Power in Vietnam (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981), p. 198; Spector, Early Years, 
pp. 308-11, 326. 

24 Quote from Spector, Early Years, p. 224, and see also pp. 223, 228. 

U.S.-Vietnam Relations, bk. 2, ch. IVA, pp. 4, 17-20; Spector, Early Years, pp. 
264, 272-73; Frederick Schneider, “Advising the ARVN: Lieutenant General Samuel 
T. Williams in Vietnam, 1955-60” (M.A. thesis, University of North Texas, 1990), 
pp. 21-22, 37-38; Hoang Ngoc Lung, Strategy and Tactics, Indochina Monographs 
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980), p. 15. 

2,1 Chester Cooper, The American Experience with Pacification in Vietnam, R-185, 
3 vols., Institute for Defense Analyses, 1972, 3:17-18, 120-21, MHI; Lansdale, In the 
Midst of Wars, pp. 126-27, 138-39, 216; Richard Hunt, Pacification: The American 
Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 
11, 21; William Nighswonger, Rural Pacification in Vietnam (New York: Frederick A. 
Praeger, 1966), pp. 35-36. 

27 Arnold, First Domino, pp. 306-08, 320-21, 359-60; FRUS, 1958-60, 1:471-74; 
Spector, Early Years, pp. 296-300. 


354 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


2 * FRUS, 1958-60 , 1:291,475-76. 

‘ Quotes from FRUS, 1955-57, 1:608, and see also pp. 606-07, 609-10. 

Spector, Eaily Years, p. 351; Memo, Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam 
(MAAG, Vietnam), n.d., sub: Notes on Anti-Guerrilla Operations, atch to Msg. 
CINCPAC to JCS, 18 Mar 60, sub: Notes on Anti-Guerrilla Operations, forwarding of 
3360, 1960, RG 218, NARA; FRUS, 1958-60, 1:291-92. 

FRUS, 1958-60, 1:353-54, 358, 477; Spector, Early Years, pp. 350, 352; 
Memo, Col Richard Comstock, Army Attache, Saigon, for Assistant Chief of Staff 
for Intelligence (ACSI), 25 Apr 60, sub: Conversation Regarding Vietnamese Army 
Problems, Historians files, CMH. 

~ James Collins, The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1950- 
1972, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1975), pp. 123—24; 
Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 1:65-67; FRUS, 1958-60, 1:479. 

33 Spector, Early Years, pp. 274, 326; FRUS, 1958-60, 1:131-33. 

4 Spector, Early Years, pp. 273, 320. 

35 Collins, Development and Training , p. 8; Spector, Early Years, pp. 321-24, 378; 
US.-Vietnam Relations, bk. 2, ch. IV, pp. 22-23. 

36 MAAG, Vietnam, Anti-Guerrilla Guerrilla, 10 Nov 60; MAAG, Vietnam, 
Implementing Actions for Anti-Guerrilla Operations, 15 Nov 60. Both in Black Memos, 
CJCS Lemnitzer, RG 218, NARA. Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 
3:150-51. 

Quote from MAAG, Vietnam, Tactics and Techniques of Counterinsurgent 
Operations, 1963, p.VF-1, and see also pp. ix-xiv, III C-l and C-2, III E-l, IV A-l, IV 
B-l to IV B-16, V L-2, VI A-l to VI B-5. 

38 Spector, Early Years, pp. 361-62, 371-72; FRUS, 1958-60, 1:613-20; Memo, 
CINCPAC, 26 Apr 60, sub: Counter-Insurgency Operations in South Vietnam and Laos, 
Historians files, CMH. 

4 Michael Clodfelter, Vietnam in Military Statistics: A History of the Indochina Wars, 
1772-1991 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1995), pp. 44, 57; Stanley Kamow, Vietnam, a 
History (New York: Viking Press, 1983), pp. 251-53. 

40 Francis Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961-1971, Vietnam Studies (Washington, 
D.C.: Department of the Army, 1973), p. 37. 

41 Richard Hunt and Richard Shultz, eds., Lessons from an Unconventional War: 
Reassessing U.S. Strategies for Future Conflicts (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), 
pp. 6, 13; Nighswonger, Rural Pacification , pp. 47^48; MACV, Guide for Subsector 
Advisers, 1966, p. 1, Historians files, CMH. 

43 Stephen Bowman, “The Evolution of United States Army Doctrine for 
Counterinsurgency Warfare: From World War II to the Commitment of Combat Units 
in Vietnam” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1985), p. 69; Collins, Development and 
Training, pp. 17-18, 33; MAAG, Vietnam, Training Tips (Small Unit Tactics), Oct 
62; Memo, Brig Gen Howard K. Eggleston, Ch, Army Section, MAAG, Vietnam, for 
Distribution, 13 Mar 63, sub: Counterinsurgent Orientation of POI’s and ATP’s. Both in 
Historians files, CMH. 

43 Quote from Ltr, McGarr to Brig Gen William Cunningham III, Asst Commandant, 
CGSC, 13 Apr 61, Historians files, CMH. MAAG, Vietnam, Tactics and Techniques 
of Counterinsurgent Operations, 1963, pp. Ill D-l to III D-5; Memos, U.S. Army, 
Pacific, for Distribution, 2 Nov 62, sub: USARPAC Counterinsurgency Summary 
Number 1, pp. 2-5, N-l 6082.21, CARL, and McGarr for MAAG Advisers, 15 Nov 60, 


355 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

sub: Implementing Actions for Anti-Guerrilla Operations, p. 3, Black Memos, CJCS 
Lemnitzer, RG 218, NARA. Memo, MAAG, Vietnam, for Distribution, 19 Jun 62, sub: 
Lessons Learned [LL] Number 16, pp. 1-4, Historians files, CMH (lessons learned 
reports will be hereafter cited as MAAG, Vietnam, LL number, and the date); MAAG, 
Vietnam, LL 35, 10 Jan 64, pp. 1-7, and LL 36, 4 Feb 64, pp. 1-3. Compare FM 31-20, 
1951, with Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) training materials as found in 
Translations, Army G-2, Counter Insurgency Training Lesson Plans, 27 Mar 62, MHI, 
and Counter Insurgency Training Material, 4 Apr 62, C-18745.17-B, CARL. 

44 First quote from Translation, Army G-2, Counter Insurgency Training Material, 4 
Apr 62, p. 4, and see also pp. 5-7. Memos, MAAG, Vietnam, for Distribution, 6 Dec 
62, sub: Search Techniques Training, pp. 14, 35, 37, N-18745.28-a, CARL, and U.S. 
Army, Pacific, for Distribution, 2 Nov 62, sub: USARPAC Counterinsurgency Summary 
Number 1, pp. 11-12. Second quote from Memo, Col Frank Lee, Ch, CA-MTT, for Ch 
of Civil Affairs, 20 Oct 60, sub: Report of Civil Affairs MTT in Vietnam During Period 

19 July-5 October 1960, USASOC/HO. Third quote from MAAG, Vietnam, Tactics 
and Techniques of Counterinsurgent Operations, 1963, p. Ill I-1, and see also p. Ill 1-3. 
MAAG, Vietnam, LL 16, 19 Jun 62, p. 4; LL 20, 27 Aug 62, pp. 1-2; LL 25, 17 Dec 62, 
pp. 2, 5, 7-8; LL 30, 19 Aug 63, pp. 1-7; and LL 35, 10 Jan 64, p. 5. 

45 Collins, Development and Training , pp. 43—46. 

4l ' Rpt, Brig Gen John Finn, Mar 64, sub: Report to the Chief of Staff United States 
Army on the U.S.-GVN Effort, p. I-a-6, 68-3306, RG 319, NARA (hereafter cited as 
Finn Rpt); Louis Wiesner, Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War 
Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954-1975 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), p. 32; MAAG, 
Vietnam, Tactics and Techniques of Counterinsurgent Operations, 1963, pp. IV B-13 to 
IV B-15. 

47 Clarke, Final Years, p. 12; FRUS, 1958-60, 1:310-11, 322-24, 550-51, 555; 
William Westmoreland, “The Fight for Freedom in Viet Nam,” Army Information Digest 

20 (February 1965): 10; The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of 
United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam , Senator Gravel ed., 4 vols. (Boston: Beacon 
Press, 1971-1972), 2:752-56. 

Nighswonger, Rural Pacification , p. 46; Spector, Early Years, p. 332; Hunt, 
Pacification, pp. 20-28, 42—44; Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 2:49- 
50, and 3:139—43, 204-05, 235-36; William Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (Garden 
City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 82-88, 99-100. 

41 Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat , p. 144; Nighswonger, Rural Pacification, p. 224. 
Clarke, Final Years, pp. 515-16; Robert Komer, Bureaucracy at War: U.S. 
Performance in the Vietnam Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986), p. 82; 
Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 1:18-20, and 2:114-18, 148. 

51 First quote from Spector, Early Years, p. 335, and see also, p. 368. Second quote 
from Outline for Chief MAAG, Vietnam, 24 Apr 61, p. 1. Memo, McGarr, c. Apr 61, 
sub: Anti-Guerrilla Warfare—Vietnam Style—Part I, p. 10. Both in Black Memos, CJCS 
Lemnitzer, RG 218, NARA. Ltr, McGarr, MAAG, Vietnam, to Lemnitzer, Chairman, 
Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), 20 Jan 61, pp. 2-3, Historians files, CMH; Shafer, Deadly 
Paradigms, pp. 263-64; Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 218-19. 

52 Hunt, Pacification, p. 75. 

53 Finn Rpt, pp. D-2, D-3, D-4,1-a-2,1-a-4,1-a-5,1-a-7,1-a-34,1-B-10, V-G-5, VI-a-1; 
Rpt, DCSOPS, 1 Apr 65, sub: Analysis of the Military Effort in South Vietnam, pp. 61, 
67, 68A2344, RG 319, NARA; Collins, Development and Training , pp. 35, 123-26. 


356 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


DCSOPS, A Piogram tor the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South 
Vietnam, Mar 66, pp. 5—37 (hereafter cited as PROVN); Army Concept Team in Vietnam 
(ACTIV), Armor Operations for Counterinsurgency in Vietnam, 9 Feb 66, p. 25; MAAG, 
Vietnam, LL 16, 19 Jun 62, pp. 1-4, and LL 35, 10 Jan 64, pp. 1-2, 6. 

55 ACTIV, Armor Operations, pp. 24-25; Finn Rpt, pp. D-5, D-6, I-a-7 to I-a-10, 
I-B-10,1-B-l 1, Memo, MAAG, Vietnam, n.d., sub: Notes on Anti-Guerrilla Operations; 
William Miller, ARVN Infantry Tactics Before 1965 (Research Report, Air War College, 
1970), pp. 4, 23-24; Rpts, Brig Gen Harvey Jablonsky et al., to DCSOPS, Mar 62^ 
sub: Report ot Orientation Tour to South Vietnam, p. 4, Historians files, CMH, and 
DCSOPS, 1 Apr 65, sub: Analysis of the Military Effort in South Vietnam, p. 22; 
ACTIV, Employment of Artillery in Counterinsurgency Operations, 1965, pp. xiii, xiv, 
64, D-4, E-4; MAAG, Vietnam, LL 36, 4 Feb 64, pp. 1-3. 

56 Miller, ARVN Infantry, pp. 4, 23-24; Lung, Strategy and Tactics , pp. 53-54, 
73. 

Quote from George Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and 
Vietnam, 1950-1975 (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1979), p. 132. HQDA, Final 
Report of the Research Project: Conduct of the War, May 71, p. 5, CMH. 

58 Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 2:17 and 3:230; Duiker, Road to 
Power , pp. 245-49, 261-62; Andrade, Ashes to Ashes, pp. 71-72, 81. 

59 Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 1:58. 

60 Hunt, Pacification, p. 36; Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 227-29. 

61 Finn Rpt, p. I-F-6; Rpt, DCSOPS, 1 Apr 65, sub: Analysis of the Military Effort 
in South Vietnam, p. 93; PROVN, pp. 1, 53, 58-59; CDC, Special Warfare and Civil 
Affairs Group, Concepts and General Doctrine for Counterinsurgency, Jul 65, pp. 3^1, 
47, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA; Komer, Bureaucracy at War, pp. 89-92, 119; 
Hunt, Pacification, pp. 36, 76, 90-93; Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 
2:266-71. 

62 John Gates, “Peoples' War in Vietnam,” Journal of Military History 54 (July 1990): 
338; Komer, Bureaucracy at War, p. 119. 

63 According to one scholar, forcible relocations accounted for only about 10 per¬ 
cent of all people displaced during the war. Tran Dinh Tho, Pacification, Indochina 
Monographs (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1980), p. 155; 
Gunther Lewy, America in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 445; 
Thomas Thayer, “How To Analyze a War Without Fronts, Vietnam 1965-72,” Journal 
of Defense Research, Series B, Tactical Warfare 7B (Fall 1975): 924—25; Seymour 
Melman, ed., In the Name of America (Annandale, Va.: Turnpike Press, 1968), pp. 328, 
365-66; Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, pp. 73-75, 90, 168-69, 210, 229-52, 353; 
Southeast Asia Analysis Rpt, The Refugee Problem, Magnitude and Measures, Sep 67, 
p. 16, Historians files, CMH. 

64 John Forrest, “The Civic Action Advisory Effort: Republic of Vietnam” (Master’s 
thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1969), pp. 69, 93, 107-08, 128-30; Tho, 
Pacification, p. 188; Lung, Strategy and Tactics, p. 95. 

65 In addition, North Vietnam had several divisions outside of South Vietnam, 
while both sides still fielded large paramilitary and local force units. Charles Timmes, 
“Vietnam Summary: Military Operations After the Cease-Fire Agreement, pt. 1,” 
Military Review 56 (August 1976): 65-66; Tho, Pacification, pp. 167, 184-85. 

66 Blaufarb and Tanham, Who Will Win? pp. 83-84; Cooper, American Experience 
with Pacification, 2:42; Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, p. 216; Andrade, Ashes to 


357 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

Ashes , pp. 158-64, 185, 240-42, 276, 284; Lung, Strategy and Tactics , pp. 39-40; 
Clarke, Final Years , p. 254; Tho, Pacification , p. 188. 

Clifton Fox, “Turkish Army’s Role in Nation Building," Military' Review 47 (April 
1967); 68-74; Auletta, “Ten-Nation,” pp. 55-56; Robert Peters, “So This Is Civic 
Action,” Anny Information Digest 22 (April 1967): 14; Civil Affairs School, ST 41— 
1094, Civic Action Plan for the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, 1963, Historians files, 
CMH; Rpts, Brig Gen Richard Whitney, Debriefing of Senior and Key Officers, 1964, 
pp. 5-7, 14-28, and Maj Gen George Eckhardt. Debriefing of Senior and Key Officers, 
1965, pp. 10-15, both in 314.82, CMH. 

68 Irving Heymont, “The U.S. Army and Foreign National Development,” Military 
Review 5 1 (November 1971): 22; JackMiklos, The Iranian Revolution and Modernization: 
Way Station to Anarchy (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1983), 
pp.^ 16, 21, 25-26, 29,39^42, 62-63. 

69 Lachica, The Huks, pp. 187-88, 230-48; Kessler, Rebellion and Repression, pp. 
136-56. 

Daniel Bolger, Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low-Intensity Conflict in 
Korea, 1966-1969 (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1991), pp. 
1-4, 24. 

Ibid., pp. 49-51, 55-57, 77-78; Wesley Pruden, “Asia’s Other War,” Army 17 
(November 1967): 26-31; Robert Davenport, “Barrier Along the Korean DMZ,” 
Infantry’ 57 (May-June 1967): 40^42; William Guthrie, “Korea: The Other DMZ,” 
Infantiy 60 (March-April 1970): 17-22; James Wroth, “Korea: Our Next Vietnam?” 
Military Review’ 48 (November 1968): 34-40. 

' Bolger, Unfinished War, pp. 45^46, 57. 

Ibid., pp. 30, 56-59, 83; Charles Bonesteel, “U.S.-South Korean Partnership Holds 
a Truculent North at Bay,” Army 19 (October 1969): 59-63. 

4 Bolger, Unfinished War, pp. 83-85, 97. 

Robert Zimmerman, “Thailand: The Domino That Did Not Fall,” in Edwin Corr 
and Stephen Sloan, Low-Intensity Conflict: Old Threats in a New> World (Boulder, Colo.: 
Westview Press, 1992), pp. 77-79; Robert Zimmerman, “Insurgency in Thailand,” 
Problems of Communism 25 (May-June 1976): 18-26, 30-33. 

Saiyud Kerdphol, The Struggle for Thailand: Counterinsurgency, 1965—1985 
(Bangkok: S. Research Center, 1986), pp. 2, 5; Muthiah Alagappa, The National 
Security of Developing States, Lessons from Thailand (Dover, Mass.: Auburn House, 
1987), pp. 150-58, 168-69, 188; FRUS, 1961-63, vol. 23, Southeast Asia, pp. 917, 
973-86, 992-93; Rpt, DCSOPS, 1 Apr 65, sub: Counterinsurgency: Operations and 
Planning in Thailand, MHI. 

George Tanham, Trial in Thailand (New York: Crane, Russak and Co., 1974), 
pp. 71-89; Chaiyo Krasin, “Military Civic Action in Thailand,” Military Review 48 
(January 1968): 73-77; Thomas Lobe, US. National Security Policy and Aid to the 
Thailand Police (Denver, Colo.: University of Denver, 1977), pp. 19-25, 28-30, 37^45; 
Robert Muscat, Thailand and the Lnited States: Development, Security, and Foreign 
Aid (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 160-65; J. Alexander Caldwell, 
American Economic Aid to Thailand (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1974), pp 55 
58. 

' Tanham, Trial in Thailand, pp. 78-80, 85-87, 91, 97-100. 

Zimmerman, “The Domino That Did Not Fall,” in Corr and Sloan, Low-Intensity 
Conflict, p. 87; Thomas Marks, Thailand—the Threatened Kingdom (London: 


358 


The Advisory Experience, 1955-1975 


Institute for Conflict Study, 1980), pp. 8-13; Kerdphol, Struggle for Thailand, pp. 
228-29. 

Caldwell, American Economic Aid, p. 16; Tanham, Trial in Thailand, pp. 124-25. 

81 First quote from Memo, JUSMAG, Thailand, c. 1961, sub: Small Unit Tactics— 
Anti-guerrilla Warfare, p. 2, atch to Memo, JUSMAG, Thailand, c. 1962, sub: Thailand 
Guerrilla Warfare, CARL. Second quote from ibid, p. 1. Memo, CINCPAC for JCS, 4 
May 62, sub: Status of Development of Counter-guerrilla Forces, p. 14, Historians files, 
CMH; FRUS, 1961-63, 23:52, 874-75, 913-14, 917, 973-74. 

s: Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, p. 187; Tanham, Trial in Thailand, pp. 123-25, 
130-50. 

83 Kerdphol, Struggle for Thailand, pp. 82, 130; Caldwell, American Economic Aid, 
p. 15; Lobe, Thailand Police, pp. 46, 65, 67; Zimmerman, “The Domino That Did Not 
Fall,” in Corr and Sloan, Low-Intensity Conflict, pp. 83-84. 

84 Tanham, Trial in Thailand, pp. 72, 92, 149; Lobe, Thailand Police, pp. 6, 37, 
75-77, 104-06. 

8 ' Tanham, Trial in Thailand, pp. 80, 101-04; Kerdphol, Struggle for Thailand, pp. 
90-94, 129-31, 153-54; David Wyatt, Thailand, a Short History (New Haven, Conn.: 
Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 289-90; Caldwell, American Economic Aid, pp. 57-58, 
62, 68-69, 140^43; Muscat, Thailand and the United States, pp. 168-71, 315. 

s< Memo, Col Aaron Walker, Ch, JUSMAG, Thailand, for CINCPAC, 27 Oct 78, sub: 
End of Tour Report, Historians files, CMH; Stuart Slade, “Successful Counter-insurgen¬ 
cy: How Thais Burnt the Books and Beat the Guerrillas,” International Defense Review’, 
Editorial Supplement to October 1998 Issue, Internal Security and CO-IN (October 
1989): 21-25; Kerdphol, Struggle for Thailand, pp. 84-87; Jennifer Taw, Thailand and 
the Philippines, Case Studies in U.S. IMET Training and Its Role in Internal Defense 
and Development (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1994), pp. xi, 16-17, 26-29; Alagappa, 
Lessons from Thailand, pp. 170-71, 175-78. 

8 Kerdphol, Struggle for Thailand, pp. 87, 153, 167, 177; Caldwell, American 
Economic Aid, pp. 148, 158; Alagappa, Lessons from Thailand, pp. 151, 192-93,244. 

88 Barbara LePoer, Thailand: A Country Study, Area Handbook Series (Washington, 
D.C.: Library of Congress, 1989), pp. 231-33; Kerdphol, Struggle for Thailand, pp. 
166-67; John Esterline and Mae Esterline, “How the Dominoes Fall'’: Southeast Asia 
in Perspective (New York: University Press of America, 1990), p. 276; Zimmerman, 
“The Domino That Did Not Fall,” in Corr and Sloan, Low-Intensity Conflict, pp. 89, 95; 
Alagappa, Lessons from Thailand, pp. 166, 171, 177-78, 190-92. 

89 Quote from Walt Rostow, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Foreign Aid: Ideas and 
Actions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), p. 50. Rabe, Most Dangerous, pp. 
155-59; Massoglia, Military Civic Action, pp. viii-1 to viii-11; Raymond Barrett, “The 
Development Process and Stability Operations,” Military Review 52 (November 1972): 
58-63; Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, pp. 150-51; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 501-02; 
Kerdphol, Struggle for Thailand, pp. 129, 153-54; Smith, “Alliance for Progress,” 
in Lowenthal, Exporting Democracy, pp. 78-79; Wiarda, Ethnocentrism in Foreign 
Policy, pp. 1-6; Miklos, Iranian Revolution, pp. 16, 21, 25-26, 29, 39-42, 62-63. 

90 Quotes from Packenham, Liberal America, p. 190. 

91 Quote from Richard Sutter, “The Strategic Implications of Military Civic Action,” 
in DePauw and Luz, Winning the Peace, p. 143. 

92 Ibid., pp. 133-38. Quotes from 300th Civil Affairs Group, A Guide to Military 
Civic Action, 1969, p. 55, and see also pp. 53-62, copy in CMH. Wiarda, Ethnocentrism 


359 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


in Foreign Policy, pp. 9-10, 23, 27-30; Lawrence Harrison, Underdevelopment Is a 
State of Mind (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985), p. xv; U.S. Congress, 
Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere 
Affairs, U.S. Military Policies and Programs in Latin America, 91st Cong., 1st sess., 
1969, pp. 1-31; Solomon Siliver, Counter-Insurgency and Nation Building: A Study 
with Emphasis on South East Asia (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Agency for International 
Development, 1967), p. 46; Latham, Modernization as Ideology, pp. 66, 204, 211. 

93 Miklos, Iranian Revolution, p. 1; Thomas Adams, “Military Doctrine and the 
Organization Culture of the U.S. Army” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1990), p. 
576. 

94 Cooper, American Experience with Pacification, 1:73; Finn Rpt, 2:H-17, H-18. 

95 Collins, Development and Training , pp. 52, 129-30; Clarke, Final Years, p. 245; 
Komer, Bureaucracy at War, pp. 25-37, 127; Nighswonger, Rural Pacification, pp. 
199-203; Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 73, 86-87; Rabe, Most Dangerous, pp. 
160-61. 

96 Lobe, Thailand Police, p. 6; Andrade, Ashes to Ashes, p. 85. 

97 Quote from David Greenberg, “The United States Response to Philippine 
Insurgency” (Ph.D. diss., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 
1994), p. 3. 

98 Rpt, Vietnam Special Studies Group, 16 Mar 70, sub: The Situation in the 
Countryside, Quang Nam Province, pp. 7-8, 10, 14, 16, 38—40, 48, 51-52; Rpt, 
Vietnam Special Studies Group, The Situation in the Countryside, 10 Jan 70, pp. 2-4, 
7, 90, 92-93. Both in Historians files, CMH. Hunt, Pacification, p. 247; Blaufarb, 
Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 118-19, 207, 271, 277; Bergerud, Dvnamics of Defeat, pp. 
5, 328, 333. 

99 Raymond Bishop, Medical Support of Stability Operations: a Vietnam Case Study 
(Student paper, Army War College, 1969), pp. 6-13, 23; Maullin, Soldiers, Guerrillas, 
and Politics in Colombia, pp. 69, 76-78; Barber and Ronning, Internal Security, pp. 
197-206, 230; Glick, Peaceful Conflict, pp. 176-82; Packenham, Liberal America, pp. 
174-81; Miklos, Iranian Revolution, pp. 12, 64-65; Heymont, “U.S. Army and Foreign 
National Development,” pp. 20-23; Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, pp. 147-48, 166, 
182. 

100 Hoyt Livingston and Francis Watson, “Civic Action: Purpose and Pitfalls,” 
Military Review 47 (December 1967): 21-22. 


360 


8 


Doctrine Applied: The U.S. 
Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


The deployment of U.S. combat forces to Vietnam in 1965 gave the 
Army the opportunity to apply directly its counterinsurgency concepts 
in a major conflict for the first time since the Korean War. U.S. soldiers 
soon realized that giving advice was easier than combating an insurgency 
themselves. The deployment also forced the Army to confront a sig¬ 
nificant conceptual oversight—the tendency of most counterinsurgency 
literature to focus on the political and guerrilla aspects of an insurgency 
(phases I and II) at the expense of the quasi-conventional third phase. 

Despite the fact that the crowning piece of Mao’s three stages 
of revolutionary warfare was the “war of movement,” most theorists 
had ignored this phase in favor of the more uniquely “revolutionary” 
aspects of insurgent warfare. Unfortunately, phase III insurgencies were 
exactly the type most likely to result in the commitment of U.S. ground 
troops, for as Vietnam demonstrated, a natural reluctance on the part of 
politicians to embroil the United States in foreign wars tended to limit 
U.S. participation to advisory activities in anything less than the most 
dire circumstances. Thus when U.S. combat troops arrived in 1965 they 
faced a situation more akin to the later stages of the Chinese Civil War, 
in which the counterinsurgents were whipsawed by a dual guerrilla- 
conventional threat, than a purely guerrilla conflict like the Malayan 
and Philippine insurgencies. Ironically, while Army counterguerrilla 
doctrine was rooted in the lessons of irregular combat fought within 
a conventional war context, these roots had become overshadowed 
during the early 1960s by a somewhat romanticized view of people’s 
wars, in which motley bands of ill-armed peasants under the inspired 


361 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


leadership of Communist Party organizers overthrew governments with 
little assistance from outside powers and conventional armies. While 
such eventualities were possible, this was not the situation in Vietnam. 
Consequently, the Army was compelled to rely more heavily on con¬ 
ventional forms of power than many theorists had envisioned. 1 Many 
of the most perplexing problems faced by the Army in Vietnam would 
revolve around the inherent tensions between fighting a large, conven¬ 
tional war on the one hand while attempting to pacify the countryside 
on the other. 


Strategy 

The insertion of U.S. combat forces into the Vietnamese civil war 
in 1965 dramatically altered the course of that conflict, but it did not 
significantly change American conceptions about how the war should 
be fought. American national and military doctrine maintained that 
the best way to defeat an insurgency was through a deft combina¬ 
tion of political, economic, and military measures that would remove 
the underlying causes of unrest while suppressing the overt, military 
manifestations of discontent. This had been the policy the United 
States had pursued in Vietnam without success over the previous 
decade, and it remained U.S. policy for the remainder of the war. 
Central to America’s strategy was the ubiquitous oil-spot theory that 
blended military operations, population-control measures, and civil 
programs into a cohesive tapestry of gradually expanding government 
control. 2 

While most Americans embraced this formula, they differed pro¬ 
foundly over the means to be used and the relative priority of those 
means with regard to each other. Many believed that socioeconomic 
and political issues had to receive priority at every step of the counter¬ 
insurgency process. Westmoreland and other senior officers disagreed. 
Hard experience had already demonstrated that socioeconomic better¬ 
ment programs could not survive in an insecure climate, no matter how 
well intentioned they might be. Thus, while he did not question the 
need to address political issues, Westmoreland believed that military 
concerns had to take precedence in many cases, with genuine reform 
being relegated to the later stages once a sufficient measure of security 
had been achieved through military operations. 2 

A second strategic choice that engendered controversy concerned 
the role that U.S. troops were to play in the upcoming campaign. 
Experience indicated the importance that foreign aid and safe havens 
played in successful insurgent movements, and consequently Army 


362 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 



General Westmoreland inspects Viet Cong prisoners. 


doctrine had made the isolation of the guerrillas from external assis¬ 
tance one of the three principal objectives of counterguerrilla warfare, 
along with isolating the guerrillas from internal support and effecting 
their destruction. Civilian policy makers, however, fearing a widen¬ 
ing of the conflict into a regional conflagration, refused to use ground 
troops to drive the enemy from his cross-border bases. Consequently, 
Westmoreland had little choice but to rely on air power and covert 
operations to interdict the Viet Cong’s external lifelines. Not until 1970 
would Washington lift its self-imposed ban on cross-border operations 
and then only briefly. This policy, coupled with the failure of American 
military, diplomatic, and unconventional warfare efforts to deny the 
enemy the use of Laos and Cambodia, meant that the allies were never 
able to isolate the battlefield. This predicament would ultimately prove 
fatal, for despite romantic talk about guerrillas living off the land, the 
reality was that Communist forces in South Vietnam depended heavily 
on outside sources for weapons, ammunition, and manpower. Unlike in 
Greece and Korea, where successful border interdiction caused indig¬ 
enous guerrillas to wither on the vine, in South Vietnam Communist 
forces enjoyed the benefit of an endless influx of men and materiel 
from the North that significantly offset Free World assistance to the 
Saigon government. 4 

If Westmoreland found the idea of isolating South Vietnam from 
northern infiltration an attractive—if difficult—objective, he found 
little merit in an alternative proposal to confine U.S. operations to 


363 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


coastal enclaves. This concept, championed by the U.S. ambassador 
to South Vietnam, retired Army General Maxwell Taylor, called for 
U.S. troops to guard vital air bases and population centers while the 
Army of the Republic of Vietnam took to the field. Such a deployment 
would limit America’s involvement in the conflict and position the 
United States for an easy exit should the situation deteriorate. Generals 
Westmoreland and Johnson, however, rejected the enclave concept. The 
South Vietnamese Army had already proved that it was unable to defeat 
the enemy in the field, and the situation was becoming more critical 
every day. A strategy of defensive enclaves would also forfeit the ini¬ 
tiative to the enemy—a violation of the offensive spirit that permeated 
U.S. doctrine. Moreover, Westmoreland believed that maximizing the 
Army’s strength—its fighting power—made better sense than restrict¬ 
ing the Army to a defensive role. Eventually, Taylor conceded that 
South Vietnam could not be saved by passive measures, and the enclave 
strategy gave way to a more aggressive approach. 5 

The final plan determined by Westmoreland attempted to achieve 
a delicate balance between several important counterinsurgency objec¬ 
tives. To detect and intercept the steady stream of enemy reinforce¬ 
ments crossing South Vietnam’s porous borders, Westmoreland would 
employ a screen of American-led CIDG irregulars backed by special 
reconnaissance elements and a relatively small number of regular com¬ 
bat troops. While these forces patrolled the hinterlands, he would base 
the majority of his men closer to the coast and around Saigon. From 
such locations, U.S. forces would be positioned to protect the South 
Vietnamese people from attack and to isolate the guerrillas from the 
majority of the nation’s resources, much as the enclave strategy had 
envisioned. Yet unlike the enclave strategy, Westmoreland also planned 
to use these bases to launch offensives into Communist-controlled ter¬ 
ritory, breaking up and destroying enemy concentrations and laying the 
groundwork for the eventual expansion of government control through¬ 
out South Vietnam via the oil-spot method. 

Westmoreland explained the complicated offensive-defensive role 
allied military forces would play with the analogy of a boxer. 

His right hand stays in close to secure his jaw, his mid-section, his vulnerable 
areas. His left stays out, punching, to keep the initiative on the enemy. If there 
is an opening he can uncork his right, to reinforce the left and knock the oppo¬ 
nent out. But he must always bring it back. When it is out he is vulnerable. 
Sometimes he brings the punch hand back to help cover the vital areas; then 
the opponent has the initiative. 

The right hand is the forces we need to secure the population, to be 
employed on pacification and revolutionary development missions. These 


364 



The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


concentiate on killing the guerrillas who harass the people and are the eyes 
and ears of the enemy. 

The punch hand carries the fight to the Main Force and keeps the initiative 
on him. Right hand troops are moved occasionally if the opportunity arises, 
but they can’t be gone long. They must provide security. If we pull our punch 
hand in, then like the boxer, we lose the initiative. So our fundamental strategy 
is a balance between the right and left-hand forces. We can reinforce the left, 

but we must never pull it in and button up. This is the enclave concept_The 

art of command in this environment consists in achieving the proper balance 
between the two hands . 6 

Having settled on this concept, the next step was to establish a divi¬ 
sion of labor between the Vietnamese and the newly arriving Americans. 
For the past twenty years U.S. foreign policy had consistently main¬ 
tained that indigenous governments bore primary responsibility for 
their own defense, especially in matters of internal security. This policy 
reflected the fact that indigenous governments were usually quite sensi¬ 
tive about foreigners meddling in their internal affairs, not to mention 
the aversion the American public typically exhibited toward becoming 
embroiled in overseas conflicts. U.S. officers had likewise recognized 
the merits of relegating internal security issues to local troops. Native 
soldiers were the logical instruments for enforcing the internal poli¬ 
cies of indigenous governments. They not only had a legitimacy that 
no foreign soldier could possess in the post-colonial era, but also their 
inherent language skills, cultural affinity, and regional knowledge 
gave them great advantages over foreign soldiers when they undertook 
constabulary operations. On the other hand, the military power of most 
third world nations paled in comparison to that of the United States. 
Thus creating a rough division of labor between the allies made sense. 
The militarily weak South Vietnamese would shoulder the primary 
burden of the internal war—fighting village guerrillas, establishing 
control over the nation’s population and resources, and building new 
social institutions capable of withstanding the Communist onslaught. 
Conversely, the United States, while assisting in all of these endeavors, 
would play to its own strengths to wage the big battles against the ene¬ 
my’s main force units. In so doing, U.S. forces would provide the neces¬ 
sary umbrella of security so desperately needed if Saigon’s pacification 
and nation-building endeavors were to have any chance of success. This 
approach was entirely consistent with Anglo-American doctrine and 
mirrored the way the United States had divided responsibilities fifteen 
years earlier in the Korean War. As Westmoreland explained, “we can 
carry the major share of the punch, while the weight of their [the South 
Vietnamese] effort goes into securing.” 7 


365 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


The allies incorporated Westmoreland’s division of labor into their 
annual combined campaign plans. The bifurcation, however, was never 
absolute. Throughout the war the South Vietnamese Army participated 
in major offensive operations. Conversely, U.S. units were always per¬ 
forming security and pacification support missions akin to the “right 
hand” in Westmoreland’s analogy. Thus the relationship between U.S. 
and Vietnamese roles, as well as the relative “weight” given to each of 
the two “fists,” would remain dynamic throughout the war. s 

In envisioning how the war would be fought, Westmoreland postu¬ 
lated that he first needed to “stem the tide” of Communist aggression 
by employing the few U.S. troops initially available to him in 1965 
and 1966 in a series of raids and spoiling attacks to keep the enemy 
off-balance. Once the situation had stabilized, he planned to switch 
from harassment to sustained offensive operations, exploiting the 
steady growth of American combat and logistical power to destroy the 
enemy’s major forces and bases. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese, under 
the cover of American operations and with some direct American help, 
would undertake pacification operations in selected areas. Finally, 
after the enemy’s main forces had been broken and dispersed, the allies 
would mop up the remaining insurgent infrastructure and solidify the 
government’s presence in the countryside, introducing more permanent 
political and socioeconomic reforms to strengthen the government’s 
presence and redress the causes of discontent. 

This formulation mirrored Army doctrinal precepts, and to an 
extent the war played out as Westmoreland had envisioned. After pass¬ 
ing through the initial defensive stage, MACV was able to transition to 
division- and even corps-size offensive operations by 1967. These oper¬ 
ations imposed significant human and material losses on the enemy, but 
they neither dampened his determination nor sufficiently weakened his 
offensive capability, thanks in large measure to the continued infusion 
of troops from North Vietnam. The result was a bloody stalemate. 

At this point in January 1968 the Communists launched their mas¬ 
sive Tet offensive. Tet proved a political coup for the North Vietnamese. 
The sheer size and power of the offensive shocked and demoralized 
many Americans who were beginning to tire after three years of war. 
As the conflict became increasingly unpopular at home, America’s new 
president, Richard M. Nixon, initiated a gradual withdrawal of U.S. 
troops while continuing the peace talks his predecessor had initiated 
with North Vietnam. This dual process eventually led to a tenuous 
cease-fire and the final removal of U.S. forces in 1973. 

Although the Tet offensive ultimately proved to be a political vic¬ 
tory for the Communists, militarily it was a disaster. Heavy losses led 


366 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


the C ommunists to withdraw some of their major units to remote base 
camps and cross-border sanctuaries far from South Vietnam’s popula¬ 
tion centers. Communist main force activity dropped precipitously, from 
an annual average of seventy battalion-size assaults between 1965 and 
1968 to an annual rate of twenty battalion-size attacks during 1969 and 
1970. Ironically, the Communist offensive had achieved what MACV 
had only imperfectly accomplished after three years of effort—it had 
driven the main force units back and weakened the remaining guerrillas 
to the extent that pacification could finally move forward. 4 

General Creighton W. Abrams, who replaced Westmoreland as 
MACV commander in June 1968, was determined to exploit the oppor¬ 
tunity. He championed the notion that the conflict in Vietnam should 
be treated as “one war,” in which military and pacification operations 
blended into a seamless tapestry. Consequently, Army units began pay¬ 
ing greater attention to the type of area security and pacification sup¬ 
port missions that had always been central to Army doctrine, but that 
had frequently assumed a backseat prior to 1968 due to the threat posed 
by the enemy’s main forces. 10 

The new tack taken by U.S. forces in the wake of Tet was fairly 
successful in increasing population security and reducing, though 
never eliminating, the presence of Communist guerrillas and political 
cadres among the population. Still, Abrams’ one-war campaign differed 
from Westmoreland’s activities more in emphasis than in substance. As 
MACV admitted in 1970, “the basic concept and objectives of pacifica¬ 
tion, to defeat the VC/NVA [Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army] and 
to provide the people with economic and social benefits, have changed 
little since the first comprehensive GVN [government of Vietnam] plan 
was published in 1964.” This was equally true with regard to opera¬ 
tional and tactical methods, which did not differ substantially from 
those developed during Westmoreland’s tenure. Although the military 
situation after Tet permitted the Army to undertake more pacification 
operations than had been the case prior to 1968, the counterforce mis¬ 
sion remained a central feature of Army operational life after Tet, as 
the enemy’s main forces remained poised to strike whenever the oppor¬ 
tunity arose. 11 Indeed, in 1970 MACV’s office of Civil Operations and 
Revolutionary Development Support admitted that U.S. combat units 
continued to “have the primary mission of locating and neutralizing 
enemy main force units, base areas, and liaison, communications, and 
logistical systems in clearing zones and border surveillance zones,” a 
mission that, in its opinion, was “perfectly consistent with the prin¬ 
ciples of area security.” 12 As Lt. Gen. Julian J. Ewell, one of the more 
successful commanders during the Abrams years, explained, “I had 


367 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


two rules. One is that you would try to get a very close meshing of 
pacification . . . and military operations. The other rule is the military 
operations would be given first priority in every case. That doesn’t 
mean you didn’t do pacification, but this gets at what you might call 
winning the hearts and minds of the people. I’m all for that. It’s a nice 
concept, but in fighting the Viet Cong and the NVA, if you don’t break 
their military machine you might as well forget winning the hearts and 
minds of the people.” 13 

Thus, under Abrams as under Westmoreland, defeating the enemy 
remained “the single best way of achieving security.” The means 
employed differed somewhat, only because the situation differed. The 
gradual evolution of American operations from major offensives to 
a more balanced, area control and pacification approach represented 
little more than the natural progression envisioned by Westmoreland 
and Army doctrine. That this transformation remained incomplete had 
more to do with the ultimate failure of the Army to win the main force 
war and isolate the battlefield than a dogmatic adherence to large-unit 
operations. 14 


Operational Concepts 

Army doctrine recognized that insurgencies were multifaceted phe¬ 
nomena requiring a multifaceted response. When applying this precept 
to Vietnam, General Westmoreland crafted three broad categories of 
military operations, each designed to meet a particular aspect of the 
overall mission. 

The first category, “search-and-destroy” operations, included 
offensive thrusts undertaken to attack the enemy’s major combat forma¬ 
tions and base areas. Search-and-destroy operations were a mainstay of 
the main force war and ranged in duration from a day to several weeks. 
They were not designed to hold ground or establish any type of perma¬ 
nent presence, though they could be used in conjunction with pacifica¬ 
tion operations, either to protect an already pacified sector or to prepare 
an area for future pacification by driving off the enemy’s main combat 
units. The amount of force employed in a search-and-destroy opera¬ 
tion varied from corps to companies, depending on the strength of the 
enemy and the size and nature of the operational area. Tactically, they 
usually involved the execution of some manner of sweep or encircle¬ 
ment. 15 

Westmoreland labeled the second type of operation “clearing,” or 
“clear and hold.” The Army used clearing operations to break up the 
enemy’s guerrilla forces in an area slated for pacification. Following 


368 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


doctrine, an Army brigade would move to the targeted area, establish 
base camps, and create a liaison with indigenous civil, military, and 
intelligence agencies. The brigade commander would then divide the 
area among his subordinate battalions. Depending upon the terrain 
and the strength of the enemy, MACV estimated that a battalion could 
clear an area up to 373 square kilometers in size. Once established, the 
battalions would subdivide their assigned territory among their com¬ 
ponent companies, being careful to keep a reserve for rapid reaction 
operations. The companies would saturate their areas of responsibility 
with frequent day and night patrols, raids, and ambushes ranging in 
size from squads to companies. Army units during clearing operations 
continuously operated on the offensive, eschewing static garrison duty. 
When a patrol detected guerrillas, reinforcements would be rushed 
to the scene to destroy them in a fashion not unlike the net-and-spear 
tactics U.S. advisers had introduced to the South Vietnamese in the 
early 1960s. The troops would also assist in an array of population- and 
resources-control measures designed to strengthen the government’s 
presence in the area. As the enemy’s hold over the territory weakened, 
allied units would break down into progressively smaller units, laying 
the way for the third, and final, “securing” operation. 16 

Securing operations differed little from the later phases of clearing 
operations. Rather, they represented the final stage in the solidification 
of government control over an area. Continuous patrols would reduce 
the guerrillas to a level manageable by paramilitary and police forces, 
who assumed increasing responsibility for local defense. As the para¬ 
militaries and police uprooted the last vestiges of the Communist appa¬ 
ratus, increased civil, economic, and psychological measures would 
cement the government’s hold over the region’s people and resources, 
thereby allowing the military to initiate the process in another area. 17 

MACV’s three operational categories corresponded with the gen¬ 
eral phases of progressive area clearance outlined in Army doctrine. 
Since politico-military conditions varied widely across Vietnam, the 
allies ran all three operations concurrently, applying the appropriate 
remedy to meet local circumstances. In keeping with the division of 
labor Westmoreland had formulated in 1965, U.S. combat forces gen¬ 
erally concentrated their efforts on conducting search-and-destroy and 
clearing missions, while the South Vietnamese performed most of the 
securing operations.'" 

Westmoreland’s decision to focus U.S. energy initially on search- 
and-destroy rather than clearing and securing operations drew criticism 
not only from individuals who believed politically oriented pacification 
programs should receive top priority, but also from those who shared 


369 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Westmoreland’s “security first” philosophy, but who differed with him 
over how best to achieve it. The debate reflected ambiguities within 
Army doctrine, which had never specifically embraced any particular 
level of military activity. Rather, doctrine had endorsed a wide range 
of operations—large and small, conventional and unconventional—that 
could be executed in different combinations to meet the situation at 
hand. Such an approach, while offering maximum flexibility, inevitably 
gave rise to differing interpretations as to what the best type of opera¬ 
tion might be. 10 

One school maintained that Army doctrine was too biased toward 
large-unit operations, holding as an example the central place counter¬ 
guerrilla doctrine gave encirclements—operations that were not only 
difficult to execute, but which often required large numbers of men to 
conduct successfully. Advocates of small-unit warfare argued that the 
best way to destroy guerrillas was by saturating an area with innumer¬ 
able small patrols that would relentlessly hound the enemy until he was 
destroyed. They likewise believed that small-unit operations offered 
the best method of protecting the people and separating them from 
the guerrillas. There was, however, a second school of thought—one 
composed of officers who chose to dwell on a different facet of revolu¬ 
tionary theory: the guerrilla base. While not denying the importance of 
small-unit actions, the alternate opinion maintained that under Maoist 
doctrine guerrillas must have a secure base if they were to succeed in 
transforming their petty harassing tactics into a movement capable of 
overthrowing a government. This point led people of the second school 
of thought to conclude that “we must not be diverted by fighting every 
small, scattered band that may be encountered. These actions are 
only incidental to the primary objective of locating, surrounding, and 
destroying the guerrilla’s base of operations.” 20 

Westmoreland embraced both points of view. Like many senior 
generals, he readily acknowledged that saturation patrols were the 
single best method for locating the enemy and rooting out Communist 
cadres. Indeed, from the start of the war MACV repeatedly urged 
commanders to undertake such operations whenever and wherever 
possible. Yet Westmoreland also appreciated the importance of the 
enemy’s base areas. All armies—including Ho Chi Minh’s Peoples 
Army of Vietnam (PAVN )—march on their stomachs, and, without their 
prestocked caches of food and arms, Communist main forces would be 
unable to mount major offensives. Moreover, by 1965-1966 the enemy 
had already developed the ability to operate in regimental and division 
strength. Until he had succeeded in neutralizing the main force threat, 
Westmoreland felt he had no choice but to keep a significant portion 


370 








The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


of his command concentrated lor offensive strikes and counterstrikes 
against major Communist units and the bases that sustained them. 21 

Most senior officers agreed with Westmoreland as to the impor¬ 
tance of destroying the enemy’s major forces. As Chief of Staff Johnson 
explained, “The enemy’s larger military formations must be driven 
away from the population. ... If we were to adopt a strategy which 
emphasizes only clear and hold operations, enemy base areas would 
become reasonably secure again. Any change in emphasis away from 
search-and-destroy operations would free the enemy to operate with 
relative impunity around and between the peripheries of our enclaves.” 22 
Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell agreed, stating that “Large-unit operations 
are thus the precondition for and shield behind which proceed all other 
actions to bring security to the people. With the [enemy’s] big battalions 
isolated, the remaining and smaller elements of the total communist 
structure can be subjected to widespread attack by something approach¬ 
ing saturation tactics.” Large-unit operations were therefore “the num¬ 
ber one mission of the U.S. units” according to Maj. Gen. Frederick 
C. Weyand. 23 Even those who criticized some aspects of the Army’s 
operations in Vietnam generally agreed that Westmoreland’s prioritiza¬ 
tion made sense. This was the conclusion of a major study that General 
Johnson commissioned to critique the Army’s policies in Vietnam titled 
“A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South 
Vietnam” (or “PROVN” for short). Although the 1966 report expressed 
concern that the United States was not doing enough to win the alle¬ 
giance of the Vietnamese people, it repeatedly stressed that the “bulk” 
of allied regular forces should be directed against the enemy’s main 
forces while the “remainder” guarded the people, since “the primary 
role” of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam was “‘to isolate the battlefield’ 
by curtailing significant infiltration, demolishing the key war zones, 
and fully engaging PAVN-main force VC units wherever and whenever 
they are located. Unrelenting pressure must be imposed upon these 
major enemy combat forces.” 24 

None of this meant that clearing operations and the small-unit 
saturation tactics associated with them did not have an important place 
in MACV’s thinking. At no time did Westmoreland or any of his senior 
lieutenants ever advocate the exclusive use of either large-unit or 
small-unit operations. Both had their place. In fact, from the beginning 
of Westmoreland’s tenure, small-unit operations vastly outnumbered 
large-unit operations. Moreover, the tendency of some analysts to 
equate small-unit operations with pacification and large-unit opera¬ 
tions with the big-unit war was misleading. When one considers that 
a battalion was generally needed to surround a single village and that 


371 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


two battalions were required to effect the average encirclement, the 
necessity of using large units during pacification operations becomes 
apparent. 25 


Operational Practices 

The keys to bringing peace and security to Vietnam, wrote General 
Johnson in 1965, were finding the enemy, fixing him in place, and 
fighting and finishing him. General Johnson’s prescription was hardly 
new, as it mirrored a formulation identified by Lt. Gen. Nelson A. 
Miles during the Indian wars of the nineteenth century and applied by 
generations of U.S. soldiers in virtually every war thereafter. 26 

Whether combating Native American irregulars on the Great Plains 
or Asian guerrillas in the jungles of Vietnam, the first requirement—to 
find the enemy—posed the most difficult challenge to Army soldiers. 
Following classic guerrilla doctrine, the Communists generally fought 
only when it served their purposes. They made their homes in terrain 
that was difficult to penetrate, and they did not hesitate to burrow 
elaborate underground complexes to further elude detection. The cover 
provided by earth and leaf, when coupled with the guerrillas’ caginess 
and the shelter they received from the population, made them a most 
difficult quarry. 

The enemy’s ability to fight, run, or hide at his discretion meant 
that the insurgent, and not the Americans, most often determined the 
tempo of the war. This fact both surprised and frustrated senior com¬ 
manders who sought to wrest the initiative from the enemy. 27 

The key to finding the enemy was intelligence, and MACV employed 
every possible means to obtain it. In its endless pursuit of information, 
MACV supplemented traditional methods with new devices hurried 
into production—sensors to detect heat, sound, pressure, and move¬ 
ment; side-looking airborne radar; and night vision equipment. As doc¬ 
trine had predicted, U.S. soldiers learned that they needed to consider 
more political, social, and economic factors in planning and executing 
operations than was normally the case in conventional warfare. MACV 
also decided that it needed to increase the size of its intelligence staffs 
down to the brigade level in response to the complexities of a frontless 
war. Interpreters were in especially short supply, and the Army quickly 
found that indigenous personnel were invaluable adjuncts to the con¬ 
duct of any pacification operation. When government personnel were 
not available, some units resorted to expedients, like the 1st Battalion, 
50th Infantry, which “adopted” Vietnamese boys of nine to fourteen 
years of age to use as interpreters and intelligence agents. 28 


372 





The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


The existence of two coequal 
but independent armies caused 
many problems for allied intel¬ 
ligence. While local Vietnamese 
authorities frequently had good 
information, that information had 
to be sent up the South Vietnamese 
chain of command, then passed 
over to MACV, before wending its 
way back down to an American 
unit for action—a process that 
took so long that the information 
lost much of its utility To over¬ 
come this obstacle, Army units 
formed combined intelligence 
centers with their Vietnamese pro¬ 
vincial and military counterparts. 
The 25th Infantry Division was 
one of the first U.S. units to estab¬ 
lish such centers in 1966, and as 
time passed the collocation of South Vietnamese and U.S. intelligence 
and headquarters elements became common practice/' 

Through the various means available to it, American intelligence 
was often able to narrow the location of an enemy unit to an area of 
fifty square kilometers or less. At that point ground operations general¬ 
ly assumed the job of actually finding the enemy. One way of doing so 
was through the use of large-unit sweeps. As the name implied, search- 
and-destroy operations were often launched without firm knowledge of 
the enemy’s whereabouts. The maneuver entailed having one or more 
battalions line up and sweep through an area looking for the enemy. 
Sometimes these operations were undertaken with the assistance of 
blocking or encircling units, and sometimes not. In December 1965 
Westmoreland expressed doubts about the ability of large-unit sweeps 
to locate an enemy who did not want to be found, lamenting that “we 
have learned through long and unhappy experience that preplanned 
schemes of maneuver, with successive objectives, by a force moving in 
one direction, will nearly always fail to make significant contact unless 
that contact is at the choosing of the VC at a time and place chosen by 
him when he thinks he has all the advantage.” 0 

Westmoreland’s concerns were unsurprising, as U.S. advisers had 
long criticized the South Vietnamese for making the very same mis¬ 
takes. The Army persisted in using sweeps to find the enemy, in part 



A Viet Cong prisoner, wearing a 
mask to hide his identity, helps 
U.S. troops locate his former 
colleagues. 


373 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Vietnam’s terrain posed significant challenges to 
counter guerrilla operations. 


because there were situations in which the enemy seemed too strong 
to employ smaller patrols. Moreover, MACV hoped that, with greater 
ingenuity and skill, U.S. troops could eventually improve the effec¬ 
tiveness of such expeditions. The command counseled subordinates 
to encircle the suspect area completely before launching a sweep and 
to be more diligent in executing the search, taking as much as three 
weeks to scour the targeted area. It likewise adopted the policy of hav¬ 
ing troops return to suspect areas in the hope that multiple operations 
would gradually wear down the enemy’s infrastructure. These and other 
modifications did indeed improve the performance of allied operations. 
Still, manpower shortages frequently interfered with such undertak¬ 
ings, while the enemy continued to display an uncanny ability to evade 
even the most meticulous sweep. More often than not, sweeps uncov¬ 
ered Communist supplies and killed enemy troops but rarely generated 
decisive battles. 31 

Many officers expressed dissatisfaction with large sweep opera¬ 
tions. “I hope that we have conducted our last ‘search and destroy’ 
operation,” wrote Brig. Gen. Ellis W. Williamson, the commander of 
the 173d Airborne Brigade in September 1965. “I am thoroughly con¬ 
vinced that running into the jungle with a lot of people without a fixed 
target is a lot of effort, a lot of physical energy expended. A major 
portion of our effort evaporates into the air.” Frustrated at the enemy’s 
ability to sidestep major expeditions, a growing number of officers 


374 




The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


began to look lor alternative ways to find the enemy. Two such officers 
were Brig. Gen. Willard Pearson, commander of the 101st Airborne 
Division s 1st Brigade in 1966, and Col. David H. Hackworth, his one¬ 
time subordinate. 32 

Rather than sending out entire brigades in a vain attempt to locate 
the enemy, Pearson suggested that the Army adopt subtler methods, 
an approach he called semi-guerrilla tactics. Among the techniques he 
advocated were the extensive use of small reconnaissance and ambush 
patrols, night operations, deception activities, and informer networks. 
His views received wide distribution through the efforts of the outspo¬ 
ken Colonel Hackworth, a successful practitioner of Pearson’s method 
and prolific publicist. 33 

Hackworth’s declaration that “to defeat the guerrilla we must 
become guerrillas. Every insurgent tactic must be employed against 
the insurgent,” became a rallying cry for those who believed that the 
Army had failed to adapt to modern revolutionary war. Nevertheless, 
neither officer advocated a radical departure from Army doctrine. 
They accepted both the Army’s basic tactics and the important place 
that technology played in them. They also believed that large-unit 
sweeps and search-and-destroy operations had a legitimate function 
to play in counterguerrilla warfare. The emphasis in Pearson’s phrase 
semi-guerrilla tactics was squarely on the prefix semi, for as one 
1st Brigade publication explained, “once contact is made remove the 
cloak of being a guerrilla and operate conventionally using all avail¬ 
able firepower, mobility, and reserves.” Even Hackworth’s guerrilla 
tactics were based on the full exploitation of what he called America’s 
“two aces in the hole—firepower and helicopter mobility”—neither 
of which were available to true guerrillas. Thus, rather than embrac¬ 
ing guerrilla warfare, Pearson and Hackworth were merely trying to 
augment the Army’s existing capabilities with some guerrilla-style 
techniques. This approach was fully within the bounds of doctrinal 
thought. Indeed, in seeking to find an appropriate balance between 
conventional and unconventional techniques, Pearson and Hackworth 
were acting in the finest tradition of American counterguerrilla war¬ 
fare, a tradition that reached back to Dennis Hart Mahan’s teachings 
at the U.S. Military Academy during the 1830s, if not to the colonial 
frontier. MACV recognized this and encouraged subordinate com¬ 
manders to employ schemes akin to Pearson’s semi-guerrilla methods 
that, while never replacing the sweep, became increasingly common 
as the war progressed. 34 

Regardless of whether a unit was performing a search-and-destroy, 
clearing, or semi-guerrilla mission, patrolling was essential to finding 


375 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the enemy. During the war, unit commanders developed a variety of 
patrol procedures, each tailored to a particular need or environment. 
Among these were such exotically named methods as the cloverleaf, 
the checkerboard, bushmaster patrols, eagle flights, thunder runs, and 
the jitterbug. 35 

Although all infantry units conducted patrols on a daily basis, the 
need for skilled reconnaissance personnel was so great that commanders 
turned to a number of expedients. In 1965 Westmoreland encouraged 
his brigade and division commanders to raise specially trained recon¬ 
naissance elements patterned on the Army’s long-range reconnaissance 
patrol units. The Army had first created these units in the 1950s as 
special teams for conducting reconnaissance, intelligence, rescue, and 
target acquisition missions behind enemy lines. Though originally envi¬ 
sioned for use during a conventional or nuclear war, the missions they 
were designed to fulfill were at a premium in Vietnam. However, since 
the Department of the Army had not authorized the manpower needed 
to form such organizations, commanders had to create them on an ad 
hoc basis by reallocating personnel organic to their units. 36 

The first Army brigade to deploy to Vietnam, the 173d Airborne 
Brigade, was also the first to create a long-range reconnaissance patrol 
from organic assets in October 1965. In 1966 Westmoreland estab¬ 
lished a reconnaissance and commando school in Vietnam to provide 
training for all such special detachments, and by the fall of 1967 every 
division and most separate brigades had provisional LRRPs. MACV 
issued a doctrinal pamphlet governing the use of these special assets in 
late 1967, but the units remained provisional until the Army belatedly 
authorized them in 1969 under the designation of Rangers. Ultimately, 
thirteen Ranger companies served in Vietnam. 37 

Most LRRP and Ranger outfits consisted solely of Americans, but 
the Army also created mixed formations of American and indigenous 
troops. These units blended the combat power of U.S. soldiers with the 
invaluable local knowledge of Vietnamese personnel. One such forma¬ 
tion was the Combined Reconnaissance Intelligence Platoon developed 
by the 25th Infantry Division in 1966. Divided equally between U.S. 
and South Vietnamese soldiers, the unit was especially useful in ferret¬ 
ing out the enemy’s clandestine infrastructure, and eventually several 
other divisions formed similar organizations. 

Another potential source of intelligence was the thousands of 
enemy personnel who defected to the allies every year. A number of 
U.S. units recruited defectors and formed them into combined U.S.- 
Vietnamese detachments designated Kit Carson Scouts. In the 9th 
Infantry Division, the program was so successful that the division 


376 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 



A member of a long-range reconnaissance patrol 


eventually assigned defectors, called Tiger Scouts, to every rifle squad 
in the division. 

The vast majority of Vietnamese who served as scouts and auxil¬ 
iaries for American forces did so in units either controlled or advised 
by U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers. Included among these were the 
Civilian Irregular Defense Groups, the Mobile Guerrilla Forces, and 
the Delta, Sigma, Omega, Gamma, and Apache Forces. Some of these 
units were technically part of the South Vietnamese armed forces, while 
others were essentially mercenaries recruited from South Vietnam’s 
ethnic and religious minorities. Each had a unique structure and differ¬ 
ent, though somewhat overlapping, missions, including border patrol, 
population security in remote areas, deep reconnaissance, target acqui¬ 
sition, rapid reaction, and special strike missions. 

Overall, the United States had mixed success with special recon¬ 
naissance units. At times these organizations were truly a thorn in 
the side of the enemy. At others they were less than successful due to 
resource shortages, personnel problems, and inadequate training. 3 " 

Once U.S. forces had located the enemy, the next task, fixing him 
in place, was likewise complicated by the terrain and the enemy’s 
evasive ways. Historically, encirclement had been an effective means 
of bringing opponents bent on evasion to battle, and this was no less 
true in Vietnam. In concept, language, and execution, U.S. battle plans 
in Vietnam closely mirrored the Wehrmacht -based encirclement tech¬ 
niques that had graced the pages of Army manuals since 1950. The 


377 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


only major difference between U.S. encirclement operations and their 
Wehrmacht predecessors was America’s use of the helicopter, which 
gave the Americans an enveloping capability undreamed of by past 
counterinsurgents. 34 

Still, doctrinal admonitions about the inherent difficulties of 
encirclement operations remained as true in 1970 as they had been 
twenty years earlier. Troop shortages and rugged, heavily forested ter¬ 
rain often meant that encirclements were rather porous, a fact that the 
enemy fully exploited. Even the helicopter, despite its many invaluable 
services, proved to be less of a panacea than some had anticipated. 
Helicopters were initially in short supply and were expensive to oper¬ 
ate and maintain, while Vietnam’s seasonal monsoons further impeded 
operations. The noise of approaching helicopters frequently tipped 
the enemy off to American intentions, as did the scarcity of suitable 
landing zones in certain areas. Helicopters were also vulnerable to 
ground fire, a fact that led most commanders to precede their airmo¬ 
bile descents with a bombardment that again disclosed allied intentions 
to the enemy. Moreover, the helicopter’s vulnerability to ground fire 
also made redeploying troops during a firefight hard. Consequently, 
airmobile infantrymen, once deployed, were no more mobile than their 
foes. Nevertheless, trapping the enemy with some form of ground or 
heliborne encirclement remained the single best method available to the 
Army to compel a reluctant enemy to accept battle. 40 

Having found the enemy through a combination of intelligence 
and reconnaissance and fixed him in place through some manner of 
envelopment, the job remained to destroy him. Historically, fighting an 
irregular enemy had been the least difficult of the counterinsurgents’ 
three tasks. In Vietnam, however, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese 
regulars were particularly formidable adversaries. By the time U.S. 
infantry arrived in Vietnam in 1965, most Communist units were well 
trained, motivated, and led by seasoned veterans. Though it could not 
match the allies in terms of air power, artillery, and ammunition sup¬ 
ply, the average Communist main force infantry battalion with its 
typical attachments had approximately as much firepower as a U.S. 
infantry battalion. Just as troublesome was the enemy’s penchant for 
fortifications. During 1966, for example, Communist forces employed 
fortifications in 63 percent of all their combat actions with U.S. forces. 
Many enemy bunkers were impervious to anything other than a direct 
hit by bomb, rocket, or artillery. Studies indicated that a 750-pound 
bomb had less than a 50 percent chance of inflicting a casualty on an 
entrenched enemy unit, while the probability that a single 105-mm. 
artillery round would cause a casualty under the same circumstances 


378 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 



Airmobile infantry played a central role in U.S. 
counterguerrilla operations. 


was estimated at less than 1 percent. Triple canopy forests and dense 
vegetation provided additional cover from bomb blasts and prying eyes 
alike. So well concealed was the enemy that most contacts occurred at 
less than forty-six meters, a range that made both maneuver and the 
employment of fire support exceedingly difficult, especially given the 
enemy’s habit of “hugging” U.S. units so as to avoid the worst effects 
of an allied bombardment. 41 

The enemy’s many strengths caused the Army to adjust its standard 
combat methods. Perhaps no one better represented this transformation 
than Maj. Gen. William E. DePuy, one of the Army’s leading tacti¬ 
cians during the war. As MACV’s chief of operations in 1965, DePuy 
had developed MACV’s operational “bible,” a directive titled “Tactics 
and Techniques for Employment of U.S. Forces in the Republic of 
Vietnam.” Shortly after promulgating this work, DePuy left MACV to 
become commander of the 1st Infantry Division, a position from which 
he would be able to put his thoughts into practice. 

Upon assuming command, DePuy immediately issued detailed 
guidance to the division. He reasserted MACV’s position that saturation 
patrolling offered the best means of locating the enemy. He also strong¬ 
ly advocated the use of defensive works, and the 1 st Infantry Division 
soon became legendary for the interlocking bunkers that sprang up at 
each evening’s campsite. Most importantly, DePuy reminded his subor¬ 
dinates that in modern warfare firepower killed, and he urged them to 


379 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


use as much firepower as they could obtain to destroy the enemy. Yet he 
also adhered to traditional fire and maneuver tactics, stating that clos¬ 
ing with the enemy was the true climax of battle. Consequently, upon 
making contact with the enemy, DePuy instructed his men to establish 
a base of fire to pin the enemy while maneuvering a portion of the 
command to outflank or encircle him. Once fire superiority had been 
achieved, the infantry was to advance—by crawling if necessary—until 
it had closed with the enemy. Reflecting the doctrinal principle that 
guerrillas, once contacted, should never be allowed to escape, the gen¬ 
eral ordered that “under NO circumstances, repeat, NO circumstances 
will forward elements in contact withdraw in order to bring artillery 
fire on the VC.” Similarly, he insisted that his infantry maintain contact 
throughout the night, rather than withdrawing to nighttime laagers. 42 

Experience soon forced some pragmatic modifications to tradition¬ 
al fire and maneuver doctrine. The enemy’s bunkers were too strong, his 
firepower too deadly, and jungle engagement ranges too short to permit 
maneuver in the face of the enemy. Time after time, the Viet Cong and 
the North Vietnamese bloodily repulsed American ground assaults led 
by young, gung-ho officers. Consequently, by mid-1966 DePuy had 
modified his initial statements to the extent of permitting officers who 
found themselves confronted by Communist fortifications to pull their 
units back and allow artillery to pummel the enemy’s position. Still, 
he insisted that “nothing that is said above is to be construed as elimi¬ 
nating the necessity, eventually, to close with the position, destroy the 
remaining defenders and achieve the objective, by infantry elements. 
This should be done after sufficient ordnance has been expended to 
soften the position and, ideally, to kill all or most of the defenders.” 
Infantry assault, while thus still an integral part of combat tactics, had 
begun to take a backseat to the application of heavy firepower. 43 

DePuy’s experience was replicated throughout the Army in Vietnam 
in 1965 and 1966 and became the basis for U.S. tactics for the rest of 
the war. “The trick of jungle fighting,” DePuy summarized, “is to find 
the enemy with the fewest possible men and to destroy him with the 
maximum amount of firepower.” According to the new “pile on” tac¬ 
tics, the infantry would locate the enemy with small patrols, fix and 
encircle him with airmobile reinforcements, and then bury him under 
an avalanche of air- and artillery-delivered ordnance. 44 

The change in American tactics—from one that balanced fire and 
maneuver to one in which fire held overwhelming precedence—was 
logical given the realities of Vietnam. In a war in which capturing 
ground was less important than destroying the enemy, using bullets 
rather than bodies made sense. Such tactics also coincided with the 


380 






The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


political constraints that came with fighting an increasingly unpopu¬ 
lar war and made the most of America’s technological and logistical 
strengths. On the other hand, pile-on tactics were not easy to use, as 
they required commanders to choreograph the activities of fixed-wing 
aircraft, helicopter gunships, artillery, and naval gunfire with the 
movement of troops on the ground and transport helicopters in the air. 
Such operations required detailed planning, precise timing, rapid com¬ 
munications, and flawless coordination if they were to be executed in 
a manner that both prevented the enemy’s escape and minimized U.S. 
casualties. 

Not every commander could effect such coordination success¬ 
fully. Moreover, old ways died hard, and veteran officers had to stress 
repeatedly to their less-experienced colleagues the importance of using 
firepower rather than infantry to take most enemy positions. In fact, 
the officer corps remained at odds throughout the war as to what the 
exact mix of fire and maneuver should be. A 1969 survey of over two 
hundred officers revealed that 56 percent felt that decisively closing 
with the enemy still represented a better tactic than simply sitting back 
and allowing artillery to do the infantry’s work for it. Westmoreland 
himself complained that an overreliance on fire support was sapping 
soldiers’ offensive spirit and creating a “firebase psychosis” in which 
the smallest tactical task could not be performed without intensive 
artillery preparation. The plethora of firepower available to the average 
platoon and company commander led to frequent abuses of that power, 
with one study finding fifteen instances of ground commanders firing 
up to a hundred rounds of artillery fire to dislodge a single Communist 
sniper. 4 ’ 

As the war progressed the Army began to exhibit some of the 
behaviors for which U.S. advisers had criticized the South Vietnamese 
for years. Not only did the Army demonstrate an increasing reliance on 
artillery, but in practice many officers ignored DePuy’s initial admoni¬ 
tions and broke contact with the enemy to “maneuver to the rear,” either 
to call in fire support or to establish nighttime laagers. While there 
were practical reasons for breaking contact, disengaging robbed battles 
of their decisiveness and weakened already porous encirclements, 
notwithstanding the best efforts by artillery blocking fires to prevent 
the enemy from escaping during the night. The Communists appreci¬ 
ated this fact and frequently timed their attacks so that night would fall 
before the Americans could effectively react and seal the battlefield. 46 

In addition to the allegedly corrosive effects abundant firepower 
had on tactical efficiency and initiative, it also had serious ramifica¬ 
tions for the political side of the war. While air and artillery strikes 


381 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


minimized American casualties, they killed and maimed civilians, 
destroyed homes and businesses, and potentially alienated the very 
people the United States was fighting to protect. Particularly galling to 
the population was harassment and interdiction (H&I) fire. H&I fire 
was used to disrupt suspected enemy concentrations and lines of com¬ 
munications. It was often preplanned and executed at night, with little 
or no direct observation of the target. Born out of frustration with the 
Army’s inability to come to grips with the enemy and made possible 
by America’s incredible wealth, H&I fire eventually came to repre¬ 
sent about half of all fire missions in Vietnam. Some of this fire was 
undoubtedly effective and necessary, and every soldier manning some 
remote outpost slept a little easier knowing that U.S. artillery enveloped 
him in a protective blanket of steel and shrapnel. But it was also an 
extremely wasteful practice. 

As the war progressed an increasing number of soldiers expressed 
unease at the Army’s vast ammunition expenditures. Efforts by 
Westmoreland, Abrams, and others to reduce the volume of H&I fire 
were only modestly successful, however, as these went against the 
grain of the Army’s growing dependence on fire. In fact, a postwar 
survey of 110 generals found that only about 30 percent believed that 
the United States had employed too much air and artillery firepower in 
Vietnam. 47 

While not minimizing the ill effects of the Army’s growing depen¬ 
dence on fire support, firepower kept casualties down, a principal 
factor of morale both at home and in the field. The fact that the high 
ammunition expenditures had little to do with the use of search-and- 
destroy operations or conventional battle tactics is also worth noting. 
Regardless of the size or type of forces involved or the mission they 
were on—whether village security, long-range reconnaissance, satura¬ 
tion patrolling, or major offensive operations—allied troops depended 
to a large degree on air and artillery support for their survival. The 
enemy may have had less ammunition to burn and fewer pieces of 
artillery, but his weaponry was not inconsequential and no less deadly 
than American ordnance. Indeed, if not for the devastating effect of U.S. 
fire support, many a battle large and small would have been lost. Thus 
supporting fires, though abused, were a vital component of warfare in 
Vietnam. 48 


Organizational and Tactical Adaptations 

The shift from a balanced fire and maneuver philosophy to one 
that was increasingly firepower oriented represented just one of the 


382 




The LJ.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


many changes that occurred during the war. Army doctrine had always 
encouraged commanders to adapt to the situation rather than to apply 
dogmatically textbook solutions that might not fit the vagaries of war. 
Not everyone had the mental agility to make such adjustments. On the 
whole, however, U.S. soldiers exhibited the ability to learn and adapt 
during the Vietnam conflict. 

Though not created for counterguerrilla duty, the Army had devel¬ 
oped the ROAD division in such a way as to facilitate tailoring. This 
was fortunate, lor no sooner had units begun to arrive in Vietnam 
than their commanders began to clamor for a host of adjustments to 
meet the demands ol area warfare. Chief among these was the need 
for more troops—more staff to man headquarters elements for round- 
the-clock operations, more fire control specialists to accommodate 
the highly dispersed and firepower-intense nature of Vietnam combat, 
and more intelligence, psychological warfare, and civil affairs offi¬ 
cers to deal with the particularly heavy work load that revolutionary 
warfare posed for each of these disciplines. For the most part. Army 
theoreticians had anticipated these needs, but the stateside bureau¬ 
cracy often moved slowly in making the necessary adjustments. This 
situation compelled many units to resort to ad hoc arrangements in 
the interim. 

While the Army reacted gradually to irregular warfare’s manpower 
needs, it tried to anticipate materiel challenges. The military entered 
Vietnam convinced that its formations needed to be light and mobile, 
unencumbered by some of the heavier trappings required for conven¬ 
tional warfare. Consequently, in 1965 the Army undertook a number of 
steps toward streamlining its formations for Southeast Asian service. 
In the case of the 1st Infantry Division, the first full infantry division 
sent to Vietnam, the Army reorganized the division’s five infantry, two 
mechanized, and two armor battalions into nine infantry battalions. The 
Army deleted the division’s nuclear-capable rocket systems, removed 
most of its tanks, and stripped the division of 90 trucks and 120 trail¬ 
ers. Brig. Gen. Arthur L. West, the deputy assistant chief of staff for 
force development, wanted to make even deeper cuts, but Chief of Staff 
Johnson resisted further streamlining until the Army had gained some 
practical experience in Vietnam. 41 ' 

Other units made similar modifications before deploying to 
Vietnam. Once in country, the shakedown process continued, as com¬ 
manders mothballed unnecessary, ineffective, or overly burdensome 
equipment. Conversely, by hook or by crook they acquired additional 
items that had proved indispensable, like portable field radios, light 
machine guns, and M79 grenade launchers. " 


383 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Although the general trend was toward lightness, streamlining 
was not always appropriate. Thus the 1st Infantry Division was soon 
begging to have the trucks and trailers that the Army had stripped 
from the division returned to it, since the highly dispersed nature of 
the division’s operations placed great strains on its reduced transpor¬ 
tation resources. After studying the situation Combat Developments 
Command concluded that some of the Army’s streamlining measures 
had been misguided—trucks and trailers were just as necessary in low 
intensity conflict as in conventional warfare. 51 

A similar reversal occurred with respect to armored vehicles. Army 
doctrine had always stated that tanks and armored personnel carriers 
would be of limited utility in counterguerrilla warfare. Westmoreland 
initially shared this philosophy, stating in 1965 that “Vietnam is no 
place for either tank or mechanized infantry units.” This view, together 
with an apprehension that “the presence of tank formations” would 
tend “to create a psychological atmosphere of conventional combat,” 
had led Generals Johnson, Westmoreland, and Taylor to resist the 
deployment of armor to Vietnam. The only armored vehicles the Army 
had permitted the 1st Infantry Division to bring to Vietnam had been 
those assigned to the division’s armored cavalry squadron. Only with 
the greatest reluctance did Westmoreland yield to General Weyand’s 
insistence that he be allowed to bring three armored battalions (one 
battalion each of tanks and armored personnel carriers plus an armored 
cavalry squadron) with him when the 25th Infantry Division deployed 
to Vietnam in early 1966. The heavy vehicles demonstrated their worth 
as convoy escorts, raiders, rapid reaction forces, and as integral parts 
of many sweep, search-and-destroy, and assault operations. They were 
especially useful in minimizing casualties from mines, booby traps, and 
bunkers. Seeing the results, Westmoreland dropped his preconceived 
notions and increased the level of armor in Vietnam until it accounted 
for 24 percent of all Army maneuver battalions deployed during the 
war. This reversal, as in the case of the 1st Infantry Division’s trucks, 
further illustrated that a dogmatic adherence to traditional counterguer¬ 
rilla precepts could be just as debilitating as a refusal to adjust conven¬ 
tional formations to unconventional situations. 52 

As more troops deployed to Vietnam and the Army gained more 
experience in the conditions under which the war was being fought, 
the service continued to modify its organizational structure. Many 
platoon leaders, for example, reordered their platoons from three rifle 
squads and one weapons squad into a more balanced force of four 
rifle squads, each carrying one machine gun. Similarly, many battal¬ 
ion commanders came to appreciate the benefits of having four rifle 


384 



The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


companies rather than the normal three found in the standard ROAD 
infantry battalion. 

Three companies—typically two up front and one in reserve—had 
served the Army well in linear warfare in World War II and Korea, 
and the Army had preserved this structure when it created the ROAD 
division in the early 1960s. But in Vietnam, area warfare placed such 
heavy demands on rifle strength that most battalions found that they 
needed an extra maneuver element. Westmoreland began petitioning 
Washington to authorize a fourth rifle company for his infantry battal¬ 
ions in 1965, but the Army bureaucracy moved slowly on his requests. 
Consequently, unit commanders had to resort to realigning manpower 
within their organizations. Battalion headquarters and headquarters 
companies, battalion reconnaissance and antitank platoons, company 
antitank sections, and battalion ground surveillance sections were the 
most frequent entities tapped to create ad hoc fourth rifle companies. 
These expedients continued until 1967, when the Army finally shipped 
additional rifle companies to Vietnam. 53 

The addition of a fourth rifle company, together with the addition 
of a fourth maneuver battalion to certain brigades, led some divisions 
to add a fourth firing battery to their artillery battalions so as to sup¬ 
port the additional maneuver elements better. The Army also created a 
new formation—the light infantry brigade—for counterinsurgency and 
contingency operations service. Meanwhile, inspired by French and 
Vietnamese experience, the Army restructured part of the 9th Infantry 
Division for riverine duty in the Mekong Delta. The riverine force 
worked in conjunction with a Navy task force replete with gunboats 
and special troop ferrying rivercraft. With all this experimentation, the 
Army’s seven divisions and five separate brigades in Vietnam did not 
reach their final configurations until 1969, at which point no two were 
alike, as the Army had allowed each to evolve individually to fit the 
unique conditions in which it operated.' 4 

While the Army modified its organizational and logistical struc¬ 
tures to meet the exigencies of Vietnam, commanders continued to 
tinker with tactics and techniques. They developed new methods and 
revised old ones, constantly seeking to improve their performance. 
Artillery units learned how to decentralize their operations and deploy 
their guns to ensure 360-degree coverage in a frontless war. Infantry 
units developed techniques to meet some of the unique challenges 
posed by the enemy’s tactics, including mine, tunnel, and fortification 
warfare. Armored cavalry and mechanized infantry units learned to 
execute tank-like roles, while tank units created special formations for 
forest and ambush warfare. 55 


385 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Finding some way to surprise the elusive and cautious enemy lay 
at the heart of many American adaptations. Following prescriptions 
contained in prewar manuals and training texts, U.S. commanders 
leaked misleading information to the enemy, prestocked depots so as 
not to give away impending operations with big logistical buildups, 
and kept their plans secret from subordinates and, more particularly, 
the spy-ridden South Vietnamese government. They employed feints, 
ruses, and other stratagems, like sending out a seemingly vulnerable 
unit to tempt the enemy into attacking what, in reality, was a well-sup¬ 
ported formation. They also deployed stay-behind forces to ambush 
Communist scavengers who inevitably showed up at abandoned 
American campsites. To confuse the enemy further about American 
intentions, units launched decoy operations and bombarded multiple 
potential landing sites during airmobile operations. Some units even 
opted to forgo preliminary bombardments altogether during airmobile 
operations, a risky tactic given the vulnerability of troops during the 
landing process. Finally, many commanders sought to take the night 
back from the enemy." 6 

Achieving this last goal was not easy. Not only were nighttime heli- 
borne actions hazardous, but U.S. soldiers inherently disliked nocturnal 
operations, despite repeated training and command emphasis. Fatigue 
engendered from round-the-clock operations likewise worked against 
the efficiency of night activities. Moreover, portions of Vietnam’s ter¬ 
rain were so difficult as to preclude any type of maneuver at night. This 
was no less true for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese as for the 
Americans, with the exception that the enemy generally knew where 
he was going and the Americans did not. Consequently, most U.S. 
night operations consisted of relatively short troop movements and 
static ambushes. Still, as the war progressed U.S. units invested ever 
greater effort to make the night inhospitable to the enemy, with the 1 st 
Infantry Division laying an average of 1,200 night ambushes a month 
by 1968. 57 

MACV actively encouraged night operations as well as virtually 
every other conceivable innovation. Throughout the war it permitted 
unit commanders to fit their tactics and techniques to the conditions in 
which they found themselves, rather than to adhere slavishly to what 
might appear in manuals. To improve performance and help overcome 
the continuous loss of experience caused by casualties and personnel 
rotation policies, virtually every unit developed extensive rules and 
guidelines known as standing operating procedures (SOPs). Many unit 
SOPs were similar, but much variety existed as well. Such diversity 
allowed commanders to adjust to Vietnam’s many different challenges. 


386 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


Units backed these SOPs with continuous training programs, while 
MACV instituted a comprehensive reporting system to capture and 
disseminate the war’s lessons. Taken together, these actions reflected an 
atmosphere of experimentation that was highly beneficial. 58 

Over the course of the war the Army made hundreds if not thou¬ 
sands of adjustments to prescribed prewar methods. For the most part 
these changes were compatible with existing doctrine and represented 
relatively slight adjustments to technique rather than fundamental 
deviations from the overarching concepts and principles contained in 
manuals. On the other hand, there were many cases where the exigen¬ 
cies of the situation prevented the Army from implementing doctrinal 
precepts that, if followed, might well have been beneficial. 

Many officers recognized that the Army was not meeting doctrinal 
standards, but they were not always able to rectify the situation. Thus, 
while manuals clearly warned against the ill effects of soldiers littering 
the countryside with supplies and equipment that the enemy could use, 
MACV’s repeated attempts to correct such transgressions were only 
marginally effective. Similar problems existed in the areas of camp 
and march security. Habitual shortcomings in these and other areas 
weakened the effectiveness of U.S. operations in Vietnam. Still, U.S. 
troops demonstrated remarkable ingenuity in adapting their tactics and 
techniques to conditions in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the enemy proved 
equally resourceful, with the result that the war took on a seesaw qual¬ 
ity, as each side adapted to its adversary’s latest innovation and coun¬ 
tered with one of its own/' 


Pacification 

While the Army directed much of its energy toward finding, fixing, 
and fighting the enemy, MACV readily acknowledged that “the war 
in Vietnam cannot be won by offensive military operations alone.”' 10 
From the start, Westmoreland and other senior commanders repeatedly 
emphasized the importance of the struggle to win control over, and 
hopefully the support of, the Vietnamese people. MACV termed the 
process by which the allies achieved this objective pacification , which 
it defined as “the military, political, economic, and social process of 
establishing or re-establishing local government responsive to and 
involving the participation of the people.” In the military’s opinion, 
pacification was the necessary precursor for achieving the type of sys¬ 
tematic socioeconomic and political reforms that Americans generally 
thought were necessary to redress the underlying causes of revolution¬ 
ary ferment, a process that MACV termed nation building A 


387 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Soldiers teach English as part of the Army’s outreach efforts in Vietnam. 


Following national policy and Army doctrine, MACV maintained 
that responsibility for both short-term pacification and long-term 
nation building lay primarily with the South Vietnamese and the U.S. 
civilian agencies assigned to assist them. Thus MACV left the destruc¬ 
tion of the enemy’s covert apparatus largely to the indigenous police 
and paramilitaries to accomplish. Similarly, South Vietnam bore pri¬ 
mary responsibility for measures related to politics, civil administra¬ 
tion, socioeconomic betterment, village defense, and population and 
resources control. Nevertheless, MACV recognized that it had a major 
role to play in the pacification effort, and from the start Westmoreland 
directed his subordinates to assist the Republic of Vietnam’s pacifica¬ 
tion programs. 62 

Several factors impeded the Army’s ability to support pacification 
effectively. To begin with, military requirements limited the amount of 
time frontline units could devote to pacification. Although there were 
exceptions, most pacification support operations lasted only a few 
weeks or months. Often this was an insufficient amount of time to do 
the job thoroughly. Moreover, the fruits of even the most successful 
pacification endeavor tended to be short lived, as South Vietnamese 
officials frequently proved incapable of maintaining the gains achieved 
by the departing Americans. 63 

Maintaining politico-military connectivity was a second major 
problem. Pacification’s multifaceted nature required the close coordina¬ 
tion of a host of U.S. and South Vietnamese civil and security agencies. 


388 








The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


All too often these agencies worked at cross-purposes. This was partly 
the result ol bureaucratic infighting in Saigon and Washington, but more 
fundamentally, there were just too many people charged with stirring 
the pacification pot, each with his own agenda and chain of command. 
The centralization of most pacification programs under MACV in 1967 
helped but did not fully resolve this problem. 64 

Inadequacies in the Army’s personnel and force structure systems 
also hindered the Army’s participation in pacification. Although Army 
schools had familiarized many officers and noncommissioned officers 
with the pacification concept, relatively few had had any direct experi¬ 
ence in performing pacification-type functions. Ironically, the people 
with the most training in conducting civil-military operations—the 
Army’s civil affairs specialists—were not deployed to Vietnam in any 
numbers. In fact, only 1 percent of the Army’s total civil affairs assets 
ever saw service in Vietnam. There were two reasons for this. First, 
in 1965 Ambassador Taylor, backed by the State Department and the 
Agency for International Development, blocked an Army plan to send 
civil affairs teams into the countryside because he feared that such an 
action would militarize what he believed should be a civilian matter. 
Second, the Army had placed most of its civil affairs structure in the 
reserves in the belief that a war that was large enough to require sub¬ 
stantial civil affairs activities would inevitably involve a general mobi¬ 
lization. President Johnson’s decision against mobilizing the reserves 
thus left the Army in a quandary, and ultimately only three civil affairs 
companies saw service in Vietnam. 6 ' 

A final factor that interfered with the effective performance of 
pacification operations stemmed from a lack of clarity in doctrine. 
Army doctrine had always recognized the important role that civilian 
populations played in influencing the outcome of counterguerrilla and 
constabulary operations. During the 1960s, however, two schools of 
thought had emerged over civil affairs issues. The traditional school 
depicted civil affairs as an important, yet distinctly auxiliary weapon 
whose utility lay in facilitating military operations. The second school 
adopted a more expansive view, in which soldiers would don the mantle 
of social engineers to implement the latest nation-building theories. 
Since both philosophies found expression in Army texts, confusion 
inevitably arose as to the proper aims and boundaries of Army civil 
activities. 66 

A related divergence of thought existed with regard to popula¬ 
tion-control matters. Army doctrine traditionally asserted that com¬ 
manders should adopt a firm-but-fair attitude toward civilians, treating 
them as benevolently as possible and as sternly as necessary (within 


389 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the confines of international law). On the other hand, some of the 
more extreme disciples of the hearts-and-minds philosophy opposed 
virtually any measure that might inconvenience or annoy the popula¬ 
tion. Westmoreland strove to find a middle course between positive 
programs and repression. Such a course was not easy to execute and 
naturally resulted in confusion and criticism, as commanders wrestled 
with the inherent ambiguity of politico-military operations. 

The most frequent way in which U.S. combat formations partici¬ 
pated in pacification was through clearing operations. Following doc¬ 
trine, MACV assigned divisions and brigades to relatively permanent 
tactical areas of responsibility in the belief that “only by remaining in 
an area for a protracted period can a close relationship with the popu¬ 
lace be developed. This in turn engenders confidence. When the local 
people no longer live in fear that the VC will return, they will inform 
on them because it is in the interest of their own security and welfare 
to do so.” 67 

The amount of effort U.S. units were able to put into pacification 
support operations varied considerably from province to province, 
season to season, and unit to unit. Some units spent the overwhelming 
majority of their time performing search-and-destroy, encirclement, 
and other offensive operations typical of the main force war. Others, 
situated in locales less threatened by large enemy units, were able to 
focus their energies on area clearance and pacification support mis¬ 
sions. One statistical snapshot taken in the fall of 1966 revealed that 22 
percent of American combat units were currently assigned to support 
the revolutionary development program, compared to 10.1 percent 
of South Vietnamese Army units and 91.1 percent of the Regional 
and Popular Forces. One year later, Westmoreland reported that the 
proportion of U.S. units assigned to area security missions had nearly 
doubled, to 40 percent. A second study performed around the same 
time noted that while U.S. forces were responsible for about 70 percent 
of the search-and-destroy effort, they also spent about 52 percent of 
their time performing tasks associated with improving local security. 
Attention to pacification increased after Tet, while even operations 
that were not specifically pacification-oriented furthered the process 
by weakening the enemy’s overall military position. Thus pacification 
support represented a significant activity for the U.S. Army throughout 
the war A 

Brigades and battalions performed most area clearance operations. 
In addition to conducting many small-unit patrols and ambushes, the 
most common mission assigned to units during pacification opera¬ 
tions was the village search. The typical search involved establishing a 


390 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 



U.S. infantrymen search a village. 


cordon around a village—preferably in the predawn hours—with heli¬ 
copters, airmobile reserves, and artillery fire covering areas that could 
not be readily sealed by infantry. Once the cordon was established, 
troops would enter the village to search house-to-house for contraband, 
deserters, and Communist agents. The preferred method was to use 
Vietnamese police and soldiers for all the work inside the hamlets, but 
when this was not possible, the Americans did it themselves. Often 
the allies would round up all of the males and take them to an off-site 
location for interrogation, a method the Army had employed in the 
Philippine War of 1899-1902. 69 

Most searches were conducted as a part of wider military opera¬ 
tions and were necessarily limited to a day or less. Brief forays such 
as these often failed to uncover the enemy’s most important personnel, 
many of whom retreated to underground complexes stocked with sev¬ 
eral days’ worth of supplies. Moreover, many villagers were reluctant 
to help the visiting troops for fear of Communist retaliation. MACV 
recognized these facts and recommended that troops remain in a village 
for ten to fourteen days, a goal that was rarely achieved. 

By capturing Viet Cong sympathizers and disrupting the enemy’s 
political and logistical infrastructure, village cordon-and-search opera¬ 
tions materially assisted the restoration of government authority in the 
countryside. Cordoned villages provided captive audiences for govern¬ 
ment propaganda and, if sufficiently cleared, represented potentially 


391 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


fertile ground for the assertion of greater government control. Search 
operations were, on the other hand, inherently unpleasant. Few civilians 
enjoyed being turned out of their homes and having their possessions 
searched. The military’s method of foiling booby traps by compelling 
villagers to precede soldiers down streets and into buildings also won 
few friends. 70 

Doctrine stated that searches should be sufficiently discomforting 
to the civilian population so as to discourage future cooperation with 
the guerrillas, while not being so severe as to convert the populace into 
revolutionaries. This was a fine line to walk, and not one that could 
always be done successfully from either the Army’s or the population’s 
point of view. Early in the war some commanders complained that 
their men had not been sufficiently trained in search techniques. Rather 
than being overly aggressive, these officers believed their men were so 
squeamish about discomforting civilians that they were ineffective in 
conducting searches. Time and experience soon remedied this short¬ 
coming, but figuring out a way to avoid alienating people was a tougher 
problem to solve. 71 

One solution to the public relations problem posed by search opera¬ 
tions was to sugarcoat the unpleasantries with more palliative fare. 
Thus, when U.S. soldiers arrived to search a village, they often brought 
with them food, medicine, and entertainment ranging from military 
bands to theater troops. While some soldiers searched houses and inter¬ 
viewed villagers, others curried the favor of the inhabitants by distribut¬ 
ing candy to children, conducting lotteries, and performing small civic 
action projects. Meanwhile, American psychological warfare personnel 
joined with representatives of the Saigon government in proselytizing 
the peasants over hot dog and ice cream luncheons. The idea was to cre¬ 
ate a carnival-like atmosphere that would make the villagers forget and 
forgive the difficulties visited upon them by government forces. 

Early in the war Army and Marine commanders claimed great suc¬ 
cess from such activities, which they dubbed “county fairs” and “ham¬ 
let festivals.” Over time, however, more sober appraisals took hold. 
Hershey bars and musical serenades were inadequate distractions for 
women worried about the fate of sons and husbands carted off for inter¬ 
rogation. Similarly, minor kindnesses could not overcome the mixture 
of loyalty and fear many people held for the enemy. Consequently, by 
1967 the Army began to tone down its expectations for the county fair 
technique which, while never entirely discarded, assumed a less impor¬ 
tant role as the war progressed. Cordon and searches, without the frills, 
continued apace, however, as necessary vehicles for asserting control 
over the countryside. 72 


392 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 



Soldiers round up civilians as part of a village search. 


In addition to searching villages, U.S. soldiers helped implement the 
government’s population- and resources-control program by conduct¬ 
ing patrols and manning checkpoints. The allies also sought to sever the 
enemy’s logistical ties to the people by controlling the production and 
distribution of food in those parts of the country where it was feasible 
to do so. In addition to spraying herbicides in Communist-controlled 
areas, MACV regularly launched operations during rice harvest season 
to prevent the peasants from passing the fruits of their labors to the 
enemy. Sometimes these missions simply involved increased patrolling 
of farming regions. In others, the Army would round up all the peas¬ 
ants of a particular area and evacuate them to a temporary compound 
where it could both protect and watch the people. Each day the farmers 
would sally forth to harvest their crops, and each evening the Army 
would truck the peasants and their produce back to the compound for 
safekeeping. Such operations imposed hardships on civilians, but they 
increased the government’s control over the harvest and, conversely, 
reduced the Communists’ take, so much so that enemy forces were 
sometimes seriously short of food. 73 

Although the allies’ goal was to bring greater security and govern¬ 
ment services to the people where they lived, this objective was dif¬ 
ficult to achieve given the size of the country, the remoteness of many 
rural habitations, and the strength of the enemy’s forces. In addition to 
temporarily evacuating people during harvest season, the allies some¬ 
times found that the only way to cut the guerrillas’ umbilical link with 


393 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Population and resources control: a Vietnamese policeman and an 
American soldier check identities and look for contraband at a 

joint checkpoint. 


the people was to remove the population from Communist-dominated 
areas. For the most part, the Army undertook forcible removals only at 
the behest of and in coordination with government officials. This fact, 
however, did not necessarily result in an amelioration of refugee condi¬ 
tions. Public criticism slowed, but never entirely stopped, forced evacu¬ 
ations, and over the course of the war allied forces removed hundreds of 
thousands of Vietnamese civilians—a powerful, though double-edged, 
weapon. 74 

Once government troops evacuated an area, they typically put it to 
the torch to ensure that nothing was left behind for enemy use. Homes, 
livestock, or crops—anything that could sustain life—were destroyed. 
“I was reminded of Sherman’s march to the sea,” remarked a U.S. 
soldier who participated in one such devastation mission in 1966, and 
the comparison was apt, for the Army destroyed civilian property in 
the 1960s for the same reason it had in the 1860s—to deny the enemy 
resources and break the spirit of rebellion. 7 ' 

While Americans wielded the torch fairly liberally in evacuated 
areas, they needed to exercise more discretion in locales where the pop¬ 
ulation was allowed to remain. This was a difficult task given the inter¬ 
twining of guerrilla and civilian infrastructures in many Vietnamese 
villages. U.S. commanders frequently left hamlets alone despite suspi¬ 
cions that the inhabitants were colluding with the enemy. In other cases, 


394 












The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 



U.S. soldiers forcibly relocate civilians from their village. 


they targeted only those buildings most associated with the Viet Cong. 
However, if a hamlet showed signs of a significant and long-standing 
enemy presence, then commanders might well put the entire commu¬ 
nity to the torch. While the primary reason for burning hamlets was to 
destroy enemy installations and deny the enemy resources, destruction 
also played a punitive role. As one Marine Corps pamphlet distributed 
in Quang Ngai Province explained. 

Many Vietnamese have paid with their lives and their homes have been 
destroyed because they helped the Vietcong in an attempt to enslave the 
Vietnamese people. Many hamlets have been destroyed because these villages 
harbored the Vietcong. 

The hamlets of Hai Mon, Hai Tan, Sa Binh, Tan Binh, and many others 
have been destroyed because of this. We will not hesitate to destroy every 
hamlet that helps the Vietcong who are powerless to stop the combined might 
of the G.VN. and its allies. 

The U.S. Marines issue this warning: The U.S. Marines will not hesitate 
to destroy, immediately, any village or hamlet harboring the Vietcong. We will 
not hesitate to destroy, immediately, any village or hamlet used as a Vietcong 
stronghold to fire at our troops or aircraft. 

The choice is yours. If you refuse to let the Vietcong use your villages and 
hamlets as their battlefield, your homes and your lives will be saved . 76 

The Army issued similar warnings, disavowing responsibility for the 
consequences should villagers allow Communist forces to live and 
fight among them. 


395 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A U.S. patrol destroys buildings used by the Viet Cong in the Boi Loi 
Woods, a major Viet Cong base area outside of Saigon. 


While devastation certainly denied the enemy succor, it came at a 
price. Americans watching the war from their living rooms cringed at 
seeing GIs burn civilian homes. Reactions among the Vietnamese were 
more complex. Sometimes civilians blamed the allies for the death and 
destruction that resulted from allied military actions. In other cases, 
the villagers blamed the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese for their suf¬ 
fering, just as allied propagandists hoped they would. 77 Still, adverse 
public reaction to seeing U.S. soldiers setting the houses of seemingly 
innocent villagers afire led MACV to issue orders recommending that 
commanders exercise more discretion in selecting targets for dev¬ 
astation. When possible, the Army also preferred to have the South 
Vietnamese do the actual destruction. Nevertheless, MACV continued 
to insist that destruction remain a legitimate weapon of counterguerrilla 
warfare. 78 

The Army tried to ameliorate some of the war’s rougher edges 
through a dizzying array of humanitarian programs. Within four months 
of its arrival in Vietnam, the 173d Airborne Brigade had established a 
coordinated civil affairs/psychological operations program whose pri¬ 
mary goals were to build goodwill and gather intelligence. During the 
first seven months of this program, the 173d either built, refurbished, 
or began work on 14 schools, a laundry facility, 3 latrines, 5 wells, a 
refugee settlement, 2 playgrounds, 29 bridges, about 43 kilometers of 
roads, a church, and 2 medical facilities. It also administered 51,400 


396 





The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


medical treatments, distributed 182 tons of food and clothing, donated 
nearly 200,000 piasters to local charities, and hosted 10 parties for 
Vietnamese civilians." 

Such deeds were just the beginning. As more American units 
arrived they enacted similar programs. In 1967 alone the U.S. military 
either built or repaired 31,000 houses, 83 hospitals, 180 kilometers of 
irrigation systems, 200 churches, 380 dispensaries, 225 market places, 
72 orphanages, 1,052 schools, and over 2,000 wells, while dispensing 
10,286,677 medical treatments and 41,573 tons of food and commodi¬ 
ties. So eager were U.S. troop commanders to perform good works that 
some observers complained that the Army’s activities were proving 
counterproductive. Contrary to doctrine, commanders did not always 
tie their actions to larger pacification plans, nor did they always take 
the wishes and culture of the population into account, either out of 
ignorance, misplaced idealism, or just plain “can do” enthusiasm to get 
things done. Finally, as MACV had feared, American energy tended 
to make the South Vietnamese government look bad in the eyes of its 
people, since the authorities had neither the resources—nor in many 
cases the inclination—to shower gifts upon its own people."" 

Perhaps the most highly touted of all of the Army’s many civic 
activities were medical initiatives. Since 1963, American military med¬ 
ical personnel had been traveling the countryside with their Vietnamese 
counterparts providing free medical and dental services through 
the medical civic action program. The deployment of Army combat 


Dental services as civic action 



397 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


formations in 1965 allowed for 
the expansion of this program, 
designated MEDCAP II. Between 
1965 and 1968 American medical 
personnel dispensed over twenty- 
seven million medical treatments 
through MEDCAP II, a number 
that exceeded the entire popula¬ 
tion of South Vietnam. Other U.S. 
military programs, such as the 
Civilian War Casualty Program and 
the Military Provincial Hospital 
Program, provided improved care 
to thousands of civilians as well.*' 

Building schools and inoculat¬ 
ing children won the Army many 
accolades, garnered some intelli¬ 
gence, and undoubtedly strength¬ 
ened the government’s position in the countryside. Yet the Army soon 
discovered that civic action programs, even when managed directly by 
the United States, were not as powerful as some had hoped. Just as had 
occurred in America’s many advisory experiences, U.S. beneficence 
more often than not failed to turn the tide against the insurgents, and 
generally for the same reasons. Many Vietnamese were genuinely loyal 
to the Viet Cong and could not be bought with a few trinkets. Others 
were more inclined to submit to government authority but were unwill¬ 
ing to act on this inclination until they felt secure from guerrilla retali¬ 
ation. Moreover, while the program generated impressive statistics in 
terms of money spent and projects accomplished, these paled in com¬ 
parison with Vietnam’s deep socioeconomic needs—needs that merely 
deepened due to the hardships imposed by the war itself. 82 

Still, the sheer size of U.S. civic action and psychological warfare 
efforts was bound to have some effect, and tens of thousands of enemy 
soldiers and cadres surrendered over the years. Yet in Vietnam, as in 
many other insurgencies, relatively few guerrillas abandoned their 
cause because of allied civic actions or cleverly worded propaganda 
leaflets. Offers of amnesty and humane treatment did help guerrillas 
reconcile themselves to surrender, but in the end most enemy soldiers 
surrendered because they had grown tired of the war, doubted that they 
would prevail, and feared for their lives and the lives of their fami¬ 
lies—factors generated primarily through military action rather than 
uplifting social programs. 83 



A U.S. soldier helps Vietnamese 
civilians build a school. 


398 




The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


If military action was the key to pacification, then some argued the 
Army should extend its military efforts beyond clearing operations and 
into the securing stage. One of the leading advocates of this approach 
was the U.S. Marine Corps, whose Combined Action Platoon (CAP) 
program inserted marines directly into the securing process. 

Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine was modeled on Army 
doctrine and did not differ materially from it. However, the marines’ 
initial mission of protecting several coastal enclaves in northern South 
Vietnam lent itself to a more intensive pacification effort than that of 
the Army units Westmoreland was using in mobile reaction roles in 
1965. In an effort to improve local security, the marines experimented 
with marrying a Marine squad with a Regional or Popular Forces 
platoon. The combined force, or CAP, lived, worked, and fought in a 
designated village until such time as the Vietnamese were capable of 
providing for their own protection. Once this had been achieved, the 
plan called for the marines to deploy to a new village where they would 
repeat the process, slowly extending government control over a wider 
area. Meanwhile, regular Marine battalions stationed in the region lent 
support by conducting small-unit patrols and search-and-destroy opera¬ 
tions. Thus, while Westmoreland’s soldiers tried to achieve pacification 
from the “top down” by destroying the enemy’s large units first, the 
CAP marines worked from the “bottom up,” at the village level." 4 

Westmoreland acknowledged the merits of the Marine concept, 
but he refused to allow Army units to join in the practice. The South 
Vietnamese government was not keen on the idea of stationing U.S. 
soldiers inside Vietnamese villages, and Westmoreland, ever sensi¬ 
tive to accusations of colonialism, was not inclined to push the issue. 
Dispersing U.S. soldiers in penny packets across the countryside also 
raised the specter of piecemeal defeats at the hands of Communist 
main forces unencumbered by the threat of U.S. offensive strikes. 
Finally, Westmoreland, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and 
CORDS Chief Robert W. Komer all doubted that the United States had 
the will and resources to engage in an all-out CAP strategy. A nation¬ 
wide CAP program not only would absorb more manpower than the 
United States could afford, but it would also tightly bind the fate of the 
government’s local security and pacification efforts to the long-term 
presence of U.S. military forces. This contradicted America’s overall 
policy of promoting Vietnamese self-reliance and seemed particularly 
unwise given President Johnson’s 1966 offer to withdraw U.S. forces if 
North Vietnam did the same." 5 

In the end, the CAP program realized neither the loftiest hopes of 
its proponents nor the darkest fears of its detractors. On the one hand. 


399 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


the CAPs materially improved the security of the villages in which they 
were based. On the other, Westmoreland had been correct in predicting 
that pacifying the countryside would be difficult until the enemy’s big 
battalions were checked. In 1966 increasing North Vietnamese infiltra¬ 
tion into Marine Corps sectors led the marines to devote 35 percent of 
their time to large-unit operations, up from 11 percent the year before. 
By 1967 the increasing North Vietnamese threat compelled the marines 
to curtail most of their pacification support activities, and the CAP 
program fell seriously behind in its goals. By the end of 1968 not a 
single CAP village had progressed to the point where the marines could 
withdraw their men. 

The defeat of the Communist’s Tet offensive by allied conventional 
forces opened the door for greater pacification progress, and by 1970 
ninety-three CAPs had achieved their goals. Still, the program remained 
small. At no time did the U.S. Marine Corps allocate more than 3 per¬ 
cent of its total in-country manpower to the program, and only about 
20 percent of all villages in the Marine Corps area ever received a CAP. 
While some CAPs had prospered. Marine Corps selection and training 
procedures had not always generated suitable personnel for this very 
delicate assignment. Moreover, as in every other pacification initiative, 
success or failure ultimately came down to the South Vietnamese, who 
often fell short. Not only did the South Vietnamese fail to provide the 
necessary manpower to implement the program fully, but many Popular 
Forces soldiers assigned to CAP units preferred “to sit back and let the 
Marines do the work,” much as Westmoreland and Komer had feared 
they would. The fact that CAP marines suffered 2 Vi times the number 
of casualties as their Popular Forces counterparts indicated that the 
Americans were truly shouldering most of the burden. Thus, while a 
worthy endeavor, the CAP program did not meet expectations. 86 

Although the Army generally refrained from becoming directly 
involved in the securing business, it did in fact lend a hand. Army 
efforts to secure the areas around military bases through patrol and 
civic action programs differed little from Marine practices. Over 
the course of the war the Army also experimented with a variety of 
approaches for improving the local security climate upon which paci¬ 
fication was so dependent. Beginning in 1966, Westmoreland arranged 
for several U.S. Army units to provide operational and training assis¬ 
tance to counterpart organizations in the South Vietnamese Army and 
the paramilitaries. Westmoreland’s successor, General Abrams, espe¬ 
cially favored such initiatives, and by the late 1960s combined opera¬ 
tions, cross-attachments, and buddy systems that linked U.S. and South 
Vietnamese units flourished. 87 


400 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


The Army also employed a multiplicity of advisory mechanisms 
to assist the paramilitaries, from permanent territorial advisory teams 
to mobile training groups of various sorts. One such program, run 
by the 4th Infantry Division in 1968, utilized twenty-seven five-man 
Civic Action Teams. Team members—90 percent of whom were vol¬ 
unteers—lived in the hamlets to which they were assigned. They pro¬ 
vided assistance in economic self-help and security projects and helped 
train local Popular Forces units. The following year the 173d Airborne 
Brigade created Security Training Assistance Group teams that trained 
and conducted combined operations with People’s Self-Defense Force 
units.** 

In the end. Army efforts to bolster village security differed from 
Marine activities more in style than in substance. Over time, the Army 
provided ever greater support to local paramilitaries through mobile 
training teams and combined operations, while the marines stopped sta¬ 
tioning troops in villages and began operating their CAPs from mobile 
patrol bases, so that in practice the differences between the Army and 
the Marine approaches diminished even further. Ultimately, neither 
service was any more successful than the other in promoting village 

• OQ 

security. 

Next to security, probably the single greatest way in which the 
Army influenced pacification was through the conduct of its troops. 
Since the publication of General Orders 100 a century earlier, the U.S. 
Army had maintained that ethical and military considerations demanded 
that soldiers treat civilians with dignity and humanity. Contemporary 
counterinsurgency doctrine amplified this precept, and when the Army 
deployed to Vietnam Westmoreland did not hesitate to make such poli¬ 
cies a central theme. ' 0 

Essentially, there were two components to the issue of troop con¬ 
duct—battlefield behavior and civil-military relations. Noncombatant 
deaths and collateral damage are as inevitable as they are regrettable in 
war, but Westmoreland believed that the political nature of the conflict 
required that he do everything possible to minimize the war’s unpleas¬ 
ant byproducts. As U.S. combat troops began to arrive in the spring and 
summer of 1965, he directed that “the application of U.S. military force 
in Vietnam and the conduct of U.S. troops must be carefully controlled 
at all times ... a conscious effort must be made to minimize battle 
casualties among those non-combatants who must be brought back into 
the fold in the course of time. This requires an extremely high caliber 
of leadership plus the exercise of judgment and restraint not formerly 
expected of soldiers.” MACV emphasized this point by promulgating 
special rules of engagement. The rules dictated when and how troops, 


401 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

aircraft, and warships could employ their weaponry so as to cause the 
least amount of collateral damage. So important did Westmoreland 
consider this subject that during his tenure as MACV commander 
(1964-1968) he issued no fewer than forty directives regarding battle¬ 
field conduct. 91 

As the war evolved so too did the rules of engagement, with the 
trend being toward ever stricter controls. So strict did the rules become 
that they frequently delayed or prevented the application of effective 
air and artillery support, much to the disgruntlement of troops under 
fire. On the other hand, Westmoreland also believed that no set of rules 
could entirely replace the judgment of the man on the ground, nor was 
he willing to tie the hands of his subordinates so as to risk unduly the 
lives of U.S. soldiers. Consequently, rather than produce an exhaus¬ 
tive document covering every conceivable situation, MACV preferred 
to establish the basic parameters, leaving local commanders free to 
deal with individual circumstances. Over time many units developed 
their own rules of engagement that, while falling broadly within the 
framework set by MACV, did not necessarily fully coincide with each 
other. 92 

Although the spirit of the rules was widely understood, not every¬ 
one comprehended all of the details as they evolved. Moreover, there 
were always some soldiers who chose to play fast and loose with the 
rules to serve their own purposes. Thus, while the rules of engagement 
did not allow U.S. forces to fire on unarmed civilians even if they were 
in a free fire zone, many soldiers and airmen adopted the unofficial rule 
of shooting anyone who ran at their approach on the theory that evasion 
signified guilt. Ultimately, the rules proved an imperfect response to a 
complex problem, but they were better than nothing and undoubtedly 
did reduce civilian suffering. While exact data are not available, some 
statistics indicate that allied forces were responsible for about half of all 
civilian casualties in Vietnam, a modest number given the preponder¬ 
ance of American firepower. 93 

Closely allied with the rules of engagement was the issue of 
troop behavior. In late 1965 MACV directed that all soldiers enter¬ 
ing Vietnam receive a lecture on the importance of winning popular 
support. The course stated that the conflict in Vietnam was “in many 
ways a new kind of war for Americans, a struggle in which the decisive 
battles must be won not only in the field, but ultimately and finally in 
the hearts and in the minds of the people of South Vietnam.” Although 
admitting that civilian casualties were inevitable, the lecture urged sol¬ 
diers to exercise care and discretion to avoid the “ needless ” destruction 
of civilian life and property. “Wild and indiscriminate firing against 


402 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


populated places, or vengeful burning of houses and hamlets as blind 
and wholesale reprisal lor VC sniper fire, is not only wrong in and of 
itself; but if there is anything that could cause us to lose this new kind 
of struggle we’re in, this kind of thing is it.” The course appealed to the 
men’s notions of justice and fair play, stating that “throughout our his¬ 
tory, American lighting men have fought clean. American fighting men 
don’t kill noncombatants, if they can possibly help it. American fight¬ 
ing men don’t kill women and children, either in the heat of battle or 
in cold-blooded reprisal against enemy sniper fire. American fighting 
men don’t molest or insult the women. American fighting men don’t 
deliberately destroy the houses and private property of innocent civil¬ 
ians, unless it’s absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of their 
tactical mission.” 44 

Westmoreland amplified these points by distributing four pocket- 
size cards to every soldier entering Vietnam: “Code of Conduct,” 
“Geneva Conventions,” “The Enemy in Your Hands,” and “Nine Rules.” 
The first two reviewed general policies and legal requirements, while 
the third encouraged soldiers to treat captured guerrillas humanely as 
prisoners of war, even if the irregulars did not qualify for such treat¬ 
ment under international law. The Army hoped benevolent treatment 
would encourage defections, produce more intelligence, appease civil¬ 
ians who might have friends and relatives among the insurgent ranks, 
and break the cycle of brutality and retaliation that accompany most 
guerrilla wars. Finally, the “Nine Rules” laid out some basic rules of 
conduct in a fashion copied directly from Mao. 4 ’ 

The Army mandated that soldiers receive refresher training in the 
Geneva Conventions annually, while many commanders incorporated 
MACV’s troop conduct precepts into their unit SOPs and training cur- 
riculums. All of this came on top of routine instruction in international 
law, military law and discipline, and counterinsurgency principles given 
to all U.S. soldiers in stateside training centers and schools before 
they departed for Vietnam. Most divisions also established community 
councils and other forums with which to improve relations between 
themselves and the indigenous population, while MACV provided com¬ 
pensation to civilians for property damaged by American actions. 46 

Unfortunately, the tremendous effort MACV expended in trying to 
maintain proper relations with the civilian population did not prevent 
soldier misconduct. Reckless driving, indiscriminate firing, and unpro¬ 
fessional behavior were just some of the many forms of deleterious 
conduct that tarnished the image of the U.S. soldier in the eyes of the 
Vietnamese citizenry. Racism, ethnocentrism, haughtiness, and cal¬ 
lousness all reared their ugly heads in Vietnam as well. Many soldiers 


403 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


had difficulty relating to the Vietnamese, whose non-Western culture, 
alien language, and comparatively primitive standard of living made 
them appear inferior in the minds of some soldiers. Furthermore, the 
very nature of the war—the tension of living under the constant threat 
of ambush and the gnawing suspicion that arose from being unable to 
distinguish friend from foe—inevitably ate away at the morale and mor¬ 
als of U.S. soldiers. 

Army efforts to counteract this problem were hampered by the fact 
that jaded veterans did their best to disabuse newly arriving replace¬ 
ments of any lofty conceptions they might have had about nation build¬ 
ing and multicultural comity. “Trust no one” was the refrain, a mantra 
that the Army itself was compelled to repeat because such an attitude 
saved American lives, yet it did not help build confidence between sol¬ 
diers and civilians. Helping villagers dig a well while watching for the 
child that might be carrying a grenade took mental and emotional agil¬ 
ity. Some soldiers had it and some did not. Consequently, units tended 
to adopt the age-old attitude of holding the population responsible for 
whatever should befall it. Thus, if an enemy sniper should cause the 
Army to fight back in a way that damaged a village, the destruction was 
the villagers’ fault for not informing on the sniper. ' 7 

While insults, petty abuses, and criminal behavior represented the 
bulk of American misdeeds toward the Vietnamese population, there 
were genuine incidents of atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by U.S. 
servicemen, the most famous of which was the massacre of civilians at 
Son My village (commonly referred to as My Lai) in 1968. Although 
only a few soldiers were convicted of committing war crimes, the total 
number of such incidents is unknown, as there were undoubtedly cases 
that went undiscovered. 

The scale of the My Lai massacre caught the military in a whirl¬ 
wind of public criticism and compelled it to revamp its troop training 
programs. Soldiers received additional instruction in the laws of war, 
instruction made more pointed by directives that soldiers disobey “ille¬ 
gal” orders to torture or kill civilians. “Our purpose is not to lay waste 
to the country as the Romans did to Carthage, and bury its people 
forever beneath the salted earth,” stated the new training materials, 
which emphasized the notion that humane conduct was both necessary 
and “consistent with the effective conduct of hostilities.” Still, the new 
materials, while perhaps more provocative, differed little from the prin¬ 
ciples established repeatedly in various Army, MACV, and unit direc¬ 
tives over the years. Additional efforts to better prepare young soldiers 
for the culture shock they frequently experienced might well have been 
beneficial. But there were limits to the effectiveness of such train- 


404 




The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


ing, and little time in which to provide it given the short enlistments 
(draftees only served two years) and the Army’s twelve-month rotation 
policy. Ultimately, Army doctrine was correct in forecasting that all the 
theoretical training in the laws of war was of no consequence without 
leadership, for as Army training materials reminded unit leaders, “your 
men, scared, tired and having their comrades killed, may not respond 
entirely rationally unless you, by your bearing and conduct, have previ¬ 
ously established the control essential to assure their proper response 
at the moment of testing.” 9 * 

Despite the damage done to the Army’s image at home and abroad 
from soldier misconduct, the injury was not necessarily fatal. Civic 
actions, humanitarian relief programs, and damage compensation pro¬ 
cedures ameliorated some of the harm, as did the exemplary behavior 
of tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers who through correct military bear¬ 
ing and simple acts of kindness helped erase the misdeeds of others. 
Blemishes notwithstanding, many Vietnamese preferred U.S. soldiers 
to their own security forces, whose record with regard to human rights, 
honesty, and efficiency was less than enviable. American misdeeds also 
paled in comparison to the behavior of Communist forces, which did 
not hesitate to employ terror, forced labor, or extortion. Thus, while 
U.S. misconduct undoubtedly harmed the allied cause, the behavior of 
the two Vietnamese antagonists cast a much wider pall. Caught in the 
middle, the people of South Vietnam, like civilians in so many other 
civil wars, suffered egregiously at the hands of all parties to the con¬ 
flict. As the war dragged on, many peasants wished only for the war to 
end and were probably willing to accept whoever had the strength to 
protect them and bring the conflict to a close. 99 

All the Kings Horses: The Army Experience in Vietnam 

During the Vietnam War the U.S. Army made a concerted effort 
to implement contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine. At virtu¬ 
ally every level, from the conceptual to the tactical, Army actions in 
Vietnam mirrored the concepts and methods contained in Army manu¬ 
als. The failure of the Army to prevent a Communist takeover of South 
Vietnam, therefore, would seem to indicate that Army doctrine was 
fatally flawed. And flaws there were. 

In putting doctrine into practice, Army commanders frequently 
found that they had either to modify or discard many technical, tactical, 
and operational precepts to meet the conditions they found in Vietnam. 
There is no evidence, however, that this phenomenon was any more 
prevalent in Vietnam than it had been in major conventional wars like 


405 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


World War II. Despite claims that Vietnam was a new kind of war, 
most of the changes the Army made to its tactical precepts represented 
adjustments rather than fundamental revisions. By and large, basic 
small-unit infantry and jungle warfare tactics adequately met the chal¬ 
lenges of Vietnam. And when they did not, the Army did not hesitate to 
change them, demonstrating a pragmatic approach to the application of 
doctrine. More often than not, serious failings in tactics and techniques 
stemmed from insufficient training, inadequate planning, and faulty 
execution rather than major flaws in prescribed doctrine. 100 

Although Army doctrine fared fairly well at the tactical level, it evi¬ 
denced more significant weaknesses at higher levels. While the basic 
operational concepts contained in Army manuals were generally sound, 
the texts were not always sufficiently detailed to guide operators. This 
vagueness was partly by design, as general statements are more con¬ 
ducive to adaptation. Nevertheless, more definitive explanations as 
to the relative roles to be played by large-unit, small-unit, population 
security, civil affairs, and psychological operations might have reduced 
uncertainty and argument, even if exact relationships still needed to be 
formulated on a case-by-case basis. 

The fact that most counterinsurgency literature had focused on the 
first two phases of Mao’s revolutionary program was unfortunate since 
what the Army faced after 1965 was a civil war in which the “guer¬ 
rillas” were able to field divisions armed and directed by an external 
power whose regular combat formations played a central role in the 
conflict. The myopia with which many theorists had approached the 
problems of advanced revolutionary warfare stemmed in part from a 
penchant for analytical constructs that compartmentalized the military 
continuum into mutually exclusive categories. Thus wars were either 
limited or not, conventional or unconventional, internal insurgencies or 
external invasions. Once defined, the problem could be addressed with 
measures suitable for that category of conflict. Unfortunately, the war 
in Vietnam did not fit neatly into these intellectual stereotypes. It was at 
once limited (for the United States) and unlimited (for the Vietnamese). 
It was both conventional and unconventional, high-tech and low-tech, 
a civil war and an international war. This untidiness did not settle well 
with either theoreticians or practitioners, who tended to focus on one 
aspect of the conflict while ignoring the others. Intellectual rigidity and 
doctrinaire behavior were sometimes the result. 

In the case of Army doctrine, what had occurred in the 1960s was 
that the Army had placed a layer of “new” counterinsurgency theory on 
top of older, established counterguerrilla tactics and techniques. The 
resulting doctrine was more comprehensive and robust, yet experience 


406 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


would demonstrate that the new theory also had some shortcomings. 
Among these were unrealistic expectations as to the power of sociopo¬ 
litical reforms to defeat an implacable foe, an overly optimistic faith in 
the ability of foreign nation builders to transform an ailing society in 
the throes of war, and a lack of appreciation for the central role force 
plays in revolutionary warfare. 

In considering the role Army doctrine played in America’s defeat in 
Vietnam, one should remember that failure in war is not necessarily due 
to failure in doctrine. Doctrine is only one of a host of factors—strate¬ 
gic, political, personal, organizational, and economic—that determines 
the fate of military operations. In fact, the U.S. Army has a long history 
of copying the military doctrines of nations that ultimately failed in 
war, such as Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, because it believed 
that those doctrines contained valuable insights into the conduct of war 
despite the ultimate demise of their parent states. A similar situation 
existed in Vietnam: flaws in tactical and operational doctrine contrib¬ 
uted to America’s defeat, but they were not in themselves responsible 
for the outcome . 101 

In Vietnam, America’s most egregious errors lay in the realms of 
policy and strategy rather than military doctrine. The United States 
seriously overestimated its ability to bend North Vietnam to its will. 
Contrary to the theory of limited war that guided the actions of the 
Johnson administration, U.S. posturing and incremental escalations did 
not deter North Vietnam from pursuing a patently unlimited goal—the 
obliteration of the Republic of Vietnam. The failure of U.S. military and 
diplomatic efforts to prevent North Vietnamese infiltration, unrealistic 
expectations about America’s capacity to transform South Vietnamese 
institutions, and chronic disunity were also fatal flaws . 112 Ultimately, 
these and other factors created adverse circumstances that neither the 
writers of doctrine nor the soldiers called upon to implement that doc¬ 
trine were able to overcome. 


407 





Notes 


' Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 414; Henry Emerson, “Can We Out-Guerrilla 
the Communist Guerrillas?” (Student thesis, AWC, 1965), pp. 50-53. 

2 MACV Directive 525—4, 17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment 
of US Forces in the Republic of Vietnam, p. 2, Westmoreland History files, CMH; FM 
31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961, pp. 14-15, 18-19; FM 100-5, Field 
Service Regulations — Operations, 1962, pp. 88, 153. 

3 DCSOPS, A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South 
Vietnam, Mar 66, pp. 4-14, 5-18 (hereafter cited as PROVN), Historians files, CMH; 
Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 118-19, 207; Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, 
p. 211; FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, p. 31; CDC, Special Warfare and 
Civil Affairs Group, Concepts and General Doctrine for Counterinsurgency, Jul 65, p. 
98, 73A2677, CDC, RG 338, NARA. 

4 FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 8, 71; Bergerud, Dynamics of 
Defeat, pp. 328-29; W. Scott Thompson and Donaldson Frizzell, eds., The Lessons of 
Vietnam (New York: Crane, Russak and Co., 1977), p. 91. 

5 FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations — Operations, 1962, pp. 141 —42; FM 31-16, 
Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 21, 49; Herring, America’s Longest War, pp. 
132-33, 139-40; PROVN, p. 70. 

6 MFR, MACy 3 Oct 66, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 28 Aug 66, p. 28, 
Historians files, CMH. 

7 Quote from ibid., p. 29. FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961, pp. 
10, 32, 34-36; FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 37-38, 101. 

8 The division of labor was implied in the combined campaign plan for 1966 and 
more formally stated in the plan for 1967, which assigned the South Vietnamese 
Army “the primary mission of supporting Revolutionary Development activities. 

. . . The primary mission of U.S. and FWMAF [Free World Military Assistance 
Forces] will be to destroy the VC/NVA main forces, base areas, and resources and/or 
drive the enemy into the sparsely populated and food scarce areas.” Joint General 
Staff/MACV Combined Campaign Plan for Military Operations in the Republic of 
Vietnam, 1967, 7 Nov 66, AB 142, pp. 4-6, Historians files, CMH; John Carland, 
Combat Operations: Stemming the Tide, May 1965 to October 1966, United States 
Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2000), 
p. 152. 

9 HQDA, Final Report of the Research Project: Conduct of the War, May 71, pp. 
15-16, CMH. 

10 Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat, pp. 268-69; FM 31-73, Advisor Handbook for 
Counterinsurgency, 1965, pp. 58-63; FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, 
pp. 30-31. 

" Quote from MACV Lesson Learned 80, U.S. Combat Forces in Support of 
Pacification, 1970, p. 1, and see also p. i, Historians files, CMH. Study, MACV, c. 1968, 
sub: Area Security Principles and Application, pp. 4, 32, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, 
CDC, 15 Aug 69, sub: Dynamics of Fire and Maneuver, vol. 1, p. 11-29, MHI; Richard 
Prillaman, “Vietnam Update,” Infantry 59 (May-June 1969): 18-19; Clarke, Final 
Years, pp. 391-93; Hunt, Pacification, pp. 212-13, 222, 233. 


408 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


Rpt, Pacification Studies Group, CORDS, c. 1970, sub: The Area Security 
Concept, pp. 5-6, Historians files, CMH. 

13 Q uote from Krepinevich, Army and Vietnam , p. 222. Hunt, Pacification , p. 
189. 

Quote from Mark Boatner, What Have We Failed To Learn from History About 
Counterinsurgency? (Student paper, IR, CRS-4, AWC, 1966), p. 60. Richard Stilwell, 
“Evolution of Tactics—The Vietnam Experience,” Army 20 (February 1970): 19, 
23, Julian Ewell and Ira Hunt, Sharpening the Combat Edge: The Use of Analysis 
To Reinforce Military Judgment, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: Department of 
the Army, 1974), pp. 76, 78, 80—82; Thompson and Frizzell, Lessons of Vietnam, pp. 
64-65, 214-15, 223, 238. The transition to small-unit operations began early but moved 
at an uneven pace depending upon local circumstances. Nationwide, the number of 
U.S. large-unit operations dropped from 655 in 1966 to 464 in 1967. Meanwhile, the 
number of U.S. small-unit operations rose, from 172,499 in 1966 to 428,250 in 1967. 
Rpts, Office of the Asst Secy of Defense, Southeast Asia Programs (OASD [SA]), 
Sep 67, sub: Southeast Asia Analysis Report, pp. 10-12; Nov 67, sub: Southeast Asia 
Analysis Report, pp. 54-56; and Jan 68, sub: Southeast Asia Statistical Tables Through 
December 1967, tables 4d, 5b, and 5d, copies in CMH. 

15 9th Div Advisory Det, MACV, Standing Operating Procedures for Rural 
Reconstruction, 31 May 65, pp. A-7, C-18745.184A, CARL. 

16 Operational Report-Lessons Learned (ORLL), 1 May-31 Jul 66, 25th Inf Div, 
3 Aug 66, p. 2; Memo, MACV for Distribution, 11 Mar 67, sub: Counterinsurgency 
Lessons Learned No. 62: Salient Lessons Learned, p. 11. Both in Historians files, CMH. 
FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 24, 30-31; FM 31-73, Advisor- 
Handbook for Counterinsurgency, 1965, pp. 58-63. 

17 MACV Guide for Subsector Advisers, 1966, pp. 2-3, Historians files, CMH. 

Is FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 30-31; MACV Directive 
525^4, 17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment of US Forces in the 
Republic of Vietnam, pp. 6-8, 14. 

7 FM 7-20, Infantry, Airborne Infantry, and Mechanized Infantry Battalions, 1962, 
p. 234; FM 61—100, The Division, 1962, p. 243; FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations — 
Operations, 1962, p. 140; FM 21-50, Ranger Training and Ranger Operations, 1962, 
pp. 136, 141. 

2,1 Quote from Neal Grimland, “The Formidable Guerrilla,” Army 12 (February 1962): 
65. McCuen, Art of Counter-Revolutionary War, pp. 196, 235; Heilbrunn, Partisan 
Warfare, p. 169; R. L. Schweitzer, Military Tactics for Phase III: Mobile Warfare in 
Vietnam, 1964-65 (Student paper, CGSC, 1966), pp. 131-32; Emerson, “Can We Out- 
Guerrilla,” pp. iii, 27-28, 47-48. 

21 ORLL, 1 May-31 Jul 66, lstlnfDiv, 15 Aug 66, p. 23; MFR, MACV,30ct66, sub: 
MACV Commanders’ Conference, 28 Aug 66, p. 29; Memo, MACV for Distribution, 
30 Aug 65, sub: MACV Concept of Operations in the Republic of Vietnam, p. 2. All 
in Historians files, CMH. A Summary of Lessons Learned, pp. 1-3, 1-4, 1-13, atch to 
Memo, Brig Gen John Norton, Deputy Commanding General, United States Army 
Vietnam (DCG, USARV), for Distribution, 22 Sep 65, sub: A Summary of Lessons 
Learned, 68A3306, RG 319, NARA; 9th Div Advisory Det, MACV, Standing Operating 
Procedures for Rural Reconstruction, 31 May 65, pp. A-2, A-3; MACV Directive 525^4, 
17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment of US Forces in the Republic 
of Vietnam, pp. 2, 5. 


409 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


:: Quote from Harold Johnson, “The Chief of Staff on Military Strategy in Vietnam, 
Army Information Digest 23 (April 1968): 9, and see also pp. 7—8. Westmoreland, A 
Soldier Reports, pp. 145, 147, 149. 

23 First quote from Stilwell, “Evolution of Tactics,” p. 19, and see also p. 23. Second 
quote from MFR, 25th Inf Div, 23 Oct 66, sub: Briefing for Senate Preparedness 
Investigating Subcommittee, Cu Chi, 23 Oct 66, p. 8, Historians files, CMH. 

24 First and second quotes from PROVN, p. 5. Third and fourth quotes from ibid., p. 
70, and see also pp. 6, 23-24, 49, 111-12. 

25 Rpts, OASD (SA), Sep 67, sub: Southeast Asia Analysis Report, pp. 10-12; OASD 
(SA), Nov 67, sub: Southeast Asia Analysis Report, pp. 54-56; and CDC, 15 Aug 
69, sub: Dynamics of Fire and Maneuver, vol. 1, p. 11-30. William Hauser, “Fire and 
Maneuver,” Infantry 60 (September-October 1970): 13-14. 

26 Larry Cable, “Everything Is Perfect and Getting Better: The Myths and Measures 
of the American Ground War in Indochina, 1965-68,” in Looking Back on the Vietnam 
War, ed. William Head and Lawrence Grinter (Westport, Conn.: Frederick A. Praeger, 
1993), p. 193. 

2 Pamphlet, 1st Inf Div, Fundamentals of Infantry Tactics, Feb 68, p. 11, MHI; MFR, 
MACV, 10 Mar 66, sub: MACV Commanders’ Conference, 20 Feb 66, p. 1, Historians 
files, CMH; Romie Brownlee and William Mullen, Changing an Army: An Oral History 
of General William E. DePuy, USA Retired (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Military History 
Institute and U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1988), p. 160. 

28 Quote from Anthony Neglia, “NVA and VC: Different Enemies, Different Tactics,” 
Infantry 60 (September-October 1970): 53. ORLL, 1 Jan-30 Apr 66, II Field Force, 
Vietnam (II FFV), 15 May 66, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; Rpt, USARV, 1966, sub: 
Evaluation of U.S. Army Combat Operations in Vietnam (ARCOV), p. 11-46 (hereafter 
cited as ARCOV), Historians files, CMH; FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular 
Forces, 1961, pp. 4, 15, 17, 20, 22, 36-38. 

24 Mission Council Action Memo 122, 20 Sep 66, sub: Minutes of the Special 
Mission Council Meeting, Sep 17, 1966, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; FM 31-73, 
Advisor Handbook for Counterinsurgency, 1965, pp. 5, 11, 57, 66. 

30 Memo, MACJ3 for CG, Field Force Vietnam, 10 Dec 65, sub: Tactical Employment 
of US Forces and Defensive Action, p. 2, Historians files, CMH. 

31 ORLL, 1 Jan-30 Apr 66,1 Field Force, Vietnam (I FFV), 15 May 66, p. 3; Memo, 
MACV for Distribution, 11 Mar 67, sub: Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned No. 62: 
Salient Lessons Learned, pp. 8-10. Both in Historians files, CMH. MACV Directive 
525-4, 17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment of US Forces in the 
Republic of Vietnam, pp. 2-5; Memo, Westmoreland for DCG, USARV, 10 Dec 65, sub: 
Tactical Employment of U.S. Forces and Defensive Action, Correspondence 1965-68, 
William E. DePuy Papers, MHI. 

32 Quote from Lewis Sorley, Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the 
Ethics of Command (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1998), pp. 218-19. Rpt, MACV, 
History Branch, 25 May 68, sub: Lessons in Strategy, p. 7, Historians files, CMH; 
PROVN, pp. G-8, G-35; Carland, Stemming the Tide, pp. 250-51. 

33 David Hackworth, “Target Acquisition Vietnam Style,” Military Review 48 (April 
1968): 76-79; Robert Scales, “Firepower and Maneuver in the Second Indochina War,” 
Field Artillery Journal 54 (September-October 1986): 53; David Hackworth, “Guerrilla 
Battalion, U.S. Style,” Infantry 61 (January-February 1971): 24-25. 


410 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


34 First and third quotes from David Hackworth, “Your Mission—Out-Guerrilla the 
Guerrilla, Army Information Digest 23 (July 1968): 61. Second quote from Pamphlet, 
1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, Tactical SOP for Counterinsurgency Operations, 1 Dec 66, p. 
92, Historians tiles, CMH. According to one 1st Brigade publication published during 
Pearsons tenure, ‘Many otticers have the mistaken idea that duty in Vietnam means 
divorcing oneself from former tactics instruction. This is not true. The peculiarities of 
the war in Vietnam have resulted in the revision of certain tactics and formulation of new 
tactics. Basic infantry tactics form a foundation for any operation or action.” Pamphlet, 
1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, Observations of a Platoon Leader, 11 Nov 66, p. 10, and see 
also p. 29, Historians files, CMH. 

John Hay, Tactical and Materiel Innovations , Vietnam Studies (Washington, 
D.C.: Department of the Army, 1974), p. 45; Albert Garland, ed., Infantry in Vietnam 
(Nashville, Tenn.: Battery Press, 1982), p. 120; Pamphlet, 1st Inf Div, Fundamentals 
of Infantry Tactics, Feb 68, pp. 17-21; Sidney Berry, “Observations of a Brigade 
Commander, Part I,” Military Review 48 (January 1968): 17; Doughty, Army Tactical 
Doctrine , pp. 35-36; Ewell and Hunt, Sharpening the Combat Edge, pp. 106-18. 

Memo, Westmoreland for DCG, USARV, 10 Dec 65, sub: Tactical Employment of 
U.S. Forces and Defensive Action, p. 2. 

37 Annual Hist Supplement, 173d Abn Bde (Separate), 1 Jan-31 Dec 65, 1966, p. 39, 
and Qtrly Cmd Rpt, 1st Inf Div, 31 Dec 65, p. 28, both in Historians files, CMH; Albert 
Garland, Combat Notes from Vietnam (Fort Benning, Ga.: Infantry Magazine, 1968), pp. 
65-68; Memo, Lt Gen Bruce Palmer, DCG, for Westmoreland, 22 Oct 67, sub: Long 
Range Patrol Doctrine and Units, 69A5362, RG 319, NARA. 

35 Ewell and Hunt, Sharpening the Combat Edge, pp. 41—42; Simpson, Inside the 
Green Berets, pp. 123-24, 133-34, 143, 153; Hogan, Rangers or Elite Infantry, pp. 
173-84. 

39 FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 63-64; Pamphlet, 9th Inf Div, 
9th Infantry Division Field SOP, 1 Jan 68, app. 13, Infantry School Library. 

40 Bob Lenderman, “Airmobile Tactics and Techniques,” U.S. Army Aviation Digest 
11 (January 1965): 2-6; Rpt, USARV, 5 Jul 65, sub: Critique of Counterinsurgency 
Airmobile Operations, Vietnam, 68A2344, RG 319, NARA. 

41 Study, CDC, 15 Aug 69, sub: Dynamics of Fire and Maneuver, vol. 1, pp. 11-12, 
11-210; Robert Scales, Firepower in Limited War (Washington, D.C.: National Defense 
University, 1990), pp. 51-52, 74, 87-88, 133; ACTIV, Organization and Employment of 
U.S. Army Field Artillery Units in the Republic of Vietnam, Oct 69, p. 11-12, Historians 
files, CMH; Berry, “Observations of a Brigade Commander, Part I,” p. 14. 

42 Quote from Memo, DePuy for Distribution, 27 Mar 66, sub: Commanders 
Notes #1, p. 1, and see also pp. 2-3. Memo, Maj Gen Stanley Larsen, CG, FFV, for 
Distribution, 17 Dec 65, sub: Tactical Tips, pp. 2-3. Both in Historians files, CMH. 
MACV Directive 525-4, 17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment of US 
Forces in the Republic of Vietnam. 

43 Quote from Commanders Notes #4—Attack on VC Fortified Positions, p. 1, Incl 
4 to ORLL, 1 Jul-30 Sep 66, 1st Inf Div, 31 Oct 66, Historians files, CMH. David 
Hackworth, “Baptism to Command,” Infantry 57 (November-December 1967): 40; 
David Hackworth, “Hedgerows of Vietnam,” Infantry 57 (May-June 1967): 3-7; George 
Shuffer, “Finish Them with Firepower,” Military Review 47 (December 1967): 11-15; 
Boyd Bashore, “The Name of the Game Is Search and Destroy,” Army 17 (February 
1967): 56-59; Hackworth, “Guerrilla Battalion,” p. 34. 


411 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


44 First quote from “The Men Who Run the War,” Newsweek , 5 Dec 66, p. 53. Second 
quote from Brownlee and Mullen, Changing an Army , p. 138. Scales, “Firepower 
and Maneuver,” p. 52; Annual Hist Supplement, 173d Abn Bde (Separate), 1 Jan-31 
Dec 65, 1966, p. 43; George Livingston, “Attack of a Fortified Position,” Infantry 59 
(September-October 1969): 13-15; Rpt, CDC, 15 Aug 69, sub: Dynamics of Fire and 
Maneuver, vol. 1, p. Il-vi; Bashore, “Name of the Game,” p. 59; Pamphlet, 1st Inf 
Div, Fundamentals of Infantry Tactics, Feb 68, p. 23; ORLL 4-67, Observations of a 
Battalion Commander [U.S. Army Vietnam], 7 Jun 67, p. 32, MHI; Berry, “Observations 
of a Brigade Commander, Part I,” pp. 17-18. 

4 " Quote from Doughty, Army Tactical Doctrine , p. 37. As late as 1969, an Army 
study complained that officers new to Vietnam were frequently unprepared for the true 
nature of the war, primarily because they were still rooted in infantry traditions of assault 
and maneuver and lacked the skills needed to effectively control the vast array of fire 
support at their disposal. For differences of opinion over the allegedly corrosive effects 
of firepower, see Rpt, CDC, 15 Aug 69, sub: Dynamics of Fire and Maneuver, vol. 1, pp. 
11-213, 11-218; Scales, Firepower in Limited War , pp. 78, 80, 143—44; Charles Nulsen, 
The Use of Firepower in Counterguerrilla Operations (Student paper, AWC, 1968), pp. 
2, 10-14; Hauser, “Fire and Maneuver,” pp. 13-15; Pamphlet, 1st Inf Div, Fundamentals 
of Infantry Tactics, Feb 68, p. 23; Hackworth, “Hedgerows of Vietnam,” pp. 3-7; Swett, 
“Tips to Senior Commanders,” p. 36; Shuffer, “Finish Them with Firepower,” pp. 11-15; 
Bashore, “Name of the Game,” pp. 56-59; ACTIV, Organization and Employment of 
Field Artillery, Oct 69, p. IV-19; FM 31—73 , Advisor Handbook for Counterinsurgency, 
1965, p. 57; Boyd Dastrup, King of Battle: A Branch History of the U.S. Army’s Field 
Artillery (Fort Monroe, Va.: HQ, Training and Doctrine Command, 1993), pp. 284-86. 

4h Quote from Rpt, CDC, 15 Aug 69, sub: Dynamics of Fire and Maneuver, vol. 
1, p. 11-204, and see also p. 11-220, and vol. 2, pp. v, 25-26. Pamphlet, 1st Inf Div, 
Fundamentals of Infantry Tactics, Feb 68, pp. 22-23; Nulsen, Use of Firepower, p. 14; 
Berry, “Observations of a Brigade Commander, Part I,” p. 17. 

47 Only about 15 percent of all American artillery ordnance and 4 percent of Air 
Force munitions used in Vietnam were fired in direct support of ground troops while 
they were actually in combat with the enemy. Most of the rest was expended in H&I fire 
and other intelligence or interdiction missions. Scales, Firepower in Limited War, pp. 
80, 93-95, 112, 141-43; Eric Bergerud, Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning (Boulder, Colo.: 
Westview Press, 1993), pp. 84-85; Douglas Kinnard, The War Managers (Hanover, 
N.H.: University Press of New England, 1977), p. 170. 

45 Pamphlet, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, Tactical SOP for Counterinsurgency Operations, 

1 Dec 66, p. 92; Hay, Tactical and Materiel Innovations, p. 123; Hackworth, “Guerrilla 
Battalion,” pp. 36-37. 

49 Summary Sheets, ACSFOR, 18 Aug 65, sub: Review of Study “Organization and 
Equipment of Army Units,” and 31 Aug 65, sub: Organization and Equipment of Army 
Units, both in 68A2344, RG 319, NARA; John Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower: The 
Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades, Army Lineage Series (Washington, D.C.: 
U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1998), pp. 323-24; Qtrly Cmd Rpt, 1st Inf Div, 
31 Dec 65, pp. 4-5; Rpt, Army Study Group, Jul 65, sub: Organization and Equipment 
of Army Units, 68A3306, RG 319, NARA. 

" ARCOV, pp. 11-23, 11-28; Y. Y. Phillips, “The ROAD Battalion in Vietnam,” Army 
16 (September 1966): 54; Qtrly Cmd Rpt, 1st Inf Div, 31 Dec 65, pp. 13, 33; FM 31-16, 
Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 75-76. 


412 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


1 Rpt, CDC, 30 Apr 66, sub: Review and Analysis of the Evaluation of Army Combat 
Operations in Vietnam, p. 2-II-18, Historians files, CMH, and see also p. 2-II-19; 
ARCOV, p. 11-44; Qtrly Cmd Rpt, 1st Inf Div, 31 Dec 65, pp. 26-28. 

5 ‘ First quote from Msg, Westmoreland MAC 3407 to Johnson, 5 Jul 65, Westmoreland 
History files, CMH. Second quote from Michael Matheny, “Armor in Low-Intensity 
Conflict: The U.S. Experience in Vietnam,” Armor 97 (July-August 1988): 10, and see 
also p. 9. The armor statistic represents tank, armored cavalry, and mechanized infan¬ 
try formations. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, p. 178; Rpt, CDC, 15 Aug 69, sub: 
Dynamics of Fire and Maneuver, p. 11-175. 

53 T. A. Williams and Horace Homesley, Small Unit Combat Experience, Vietnam, 
1966-1967, Booz Allen Applied Research, 1 Sep 67, pp. 14-15, 26, Historians 
files, CMH; ARCOV, pp. 11-23, 11-34 to 11-38; Rpt, Army Study Group, Jul 65, sub: 
Organization and Equipment of Army Units, p. 12. 

74 ACTIV Organization and Employment of Field Artillery, Oct 69, pp. G-l, G- 
2; Wilson, Maneuver and Firepower, pp. 325-26, 334, 336; Richard Meyer, “The 
Ground-Sea Team in River Warfare,” Military Review’ 46 (September 1966): 54-61; 
Pamphlet, 9th Inf Div, 9th Infantry Division Methods of Operation and Tactics Adopted 
to Operations in the Mekong Delta, 1969, Historians files, CMH. 

55 Frank Grossman, “Artillery in Vietnam,” Ordnance 52 (November-December 
1967): 268-71; David Ott, Field Artillery, 1954-1973, Vietnam Studies (Washington, 
D.C.: Department of the Army, 1975), pp. 235^40; Study, USARV, 28 Mar 67, sub: 
Mechanized and Armor Combat Operations in Vietnam, p. 93, Historians files, CMH; 
Pamphlet, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, Observations of a Platoon Leader, 11 Nov 66, pp. 
11-12; Rpt, USARV, 31 Jan 68, sub: Attack of Fortified Positions in the Jungle, MHI. 

56 Bergerud, Red Thunder , p. 139; ORLL, 1 May-31 Jul 66, 25th Inf Div, 3 Aug 66, p. 
23; Pamphlet, 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div, Tactical SOP for Counterinsurgency Operations, 
1 Dec 66, pp. 92-94. 

57 Briefing, Lt Col Pendleton, 19 May 68, sub: Mobile Training Teams, New Arrival 
Indoctrination Training, Dissemination and Evaluation of New Ideas, p. 8, Incl 7 to 
MFR, MACV, 1 Jun 68, sub: MACV Commanders Conference, 19 May 1968, Historians 
files, CMH; Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat, p. 136; DF, AJTIS-W to Asst Commandant, 
Infantry School, n.d., sub: RVN Liaison Training Visit, 17-28 Jul 68, p. 15, Infantry 
School Library; Rpt, CDC, 15 Aug 69, sub: Dynamics of Fire and Maneuver, p. 11-203; 
Pamphlet, 9th Inf Div, 9th Infantry Division Night Tactical Techniques, 9th Inf Div file, 
MHI. 

58 Doughty, Army Tactical Doctrine, p. 35; Kevin Sheehan, “Preparing for an 
Imaginary War? Examining Peacetime Functions and Changes of Army Doctrine” 
(Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1988), pp. 285-88; Thompson and Frizzell, Lessons 
of Vietnam, p. 81. 

59 Patrick Graves, “Observations of a Platoon Leader, Part I,” Infantry 57 (May-June 
1967): 36-37; FM 31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961, p. 12; Memo, Maj 
Gen Willard Pearson, Director of Individual Training, DCSPER, for Gen Westmoreland, 
CSA, 6 Sep 68, sub: Post Mortem on Vietnam Strategy, p. 4, Westmoreland History 
files, CMH. 

60 Quote from Briefing, MACV, c. Aug 66, sub: Briefing to Mission Council, p. 1, 
Historians files, CMH. 

61 Quotes from Pamphlet, MACV, Handbook for Military Support of Pacification, 
Feb 68, p. 1, MHI, and see also pp. 33, 39. MACV Directive 525-4, 17 Sep 65, sub: 


413 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Tactics and Techniques for Employment of US Forces in the Republic of Vietnam, 
p. 9. 

62 Maxwell Taylor, “The U.S. Government and Counterinsurgency,” AWC lecture, 
11 Jan 66, question-and-answer period, p. 4, MHI; Speech, Maj Gen George Eckhardt, 
“Commanding General’s Talk to Commanders of the 9th Infantry Division Upon 
Arrival in Vietnam,” c. Dec 66-Jan 67, p. 3, Historians files, CMH; Command Policy 
66-1, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), 8 Dec 66, sub: Support of Revolutionary 
Development, Historians files, CMH; Pamphlet, MACV, Handbook for Military Support 
of Pacification, Feb 68, pp. 33, 39; MFR, MACV, 3 Oct 66, sub: MACV Commanders’ 
Conference, 28 Aug 66, p. 30. 

63 Memo, DePuy, MACJ3, for Westmoreland, 22 Sep 65, sub: The Techniques of 
Pacification, folder P and W, Correspondence 1965-68, DePuy Papers, MHI; ORLL, 1 
Nov 66-31 Jan 67, 1st Inf Div, 15 Feb 67, p. 50, Historians files, CMH. 

64 Memo, DePuy, CG, 1st Inf Div, for Westmoreland, 18 Oct 66, sub: Control of 
Revolutionary Development, Correspondence 1965-68, DePuy Papers, MHI; Study, 
DCSOPS, 1 Apr 65, sub: Analysis of the Military Effort in South Vietnam, pp. 59-60, 
65, in 68A2344, RG 319, NARA. 

65 A Summary of Lessons Learned, atch to Memo, Brig Gen John Norton, DCG, 
USARV, for Distribution, 22 Sep 65, sub: A Summary of Lessons Learned, pp. 1-12; 
William Berkman, “Civil Affairs in Vietnam” (Student thesis, AWC, 1974), pp. 5-7, 
11 . 

66 FM 31-15, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, 1961, pp. 3-5, 9-10, 14, 18-19, 
21; FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, pp. 6-7, 20, 38-39, 92; FM 100-5, 
Field Service Regulations — Operations, 1962, pp. 88, 131, 139-40, 154; FM 33-5, 
Psychological Operations, 1962, p. 124. 

MACV Directive 525^4, 17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment 
of US Forces in the Republic of Vietnam, p. 8. 

(,s Rpts, OASD (SA), Sep 67, sub: Southeast Asia Analysis Report, pp. 10-12, and 
Nov 67, sub: Southeast Asia Analysis Report, pp. 54-56; Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat, 
pp. 5, 332-33. 

MACV, Guide for Province and District Advisors, 1968, pp. 13-2 to 13-12, 
Historians files, CMH. 

711 A Summary of Lessons Learned, Section I, Lessons in Combat, atch to Memo, 
Norton, DCG, USARY for Distribution, 22 Sep 65, sub: Summary of Lessons Learned, 
p. 1-9. 

1 Ibid.; FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963, p. 40; FM 31-15, Operations 
Against Guerrilla Forces, 1961, p. 47. 

7 MACV, Guide for Province and District Advisors, 1968, pp. 13-9 to 13-12; Rpt, 
HQ, Phu Loi Pacification Task Force, 11 Jun 66, sub: Tan Phuoc Khanh Operation 
Summary, Historians files, CMH; Hay, Tactical and Materiel Innovations, pp. 139-42. 

73 Msgs, Westmoreland MAC 5740 to Admiral Sharp, 8 Jul 66, Westmoreland History 
files, CMH, and Westmoreland to Admiral Sharp, Jan 67, sub: Strategy and Concept of 
Operations for 1967, Historians files, CMH; Carland, Stemming the Tide , pp. 92-94. 

4 Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, pp. 62-63, 75, 126-29, 133, 136, 144-45, 147, 
168, 210, 229—47; Msg, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 
(COMUSMACV), to DCG, USARV, et al., 29 Jul 68, sub: Limiting New Refugees, 
Historians files, CMH. 

Unit History, 1st Bn, 28th Inf, 1966, p. 10, Historians files, CMH. 


414 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


" Quote from Jonathan Schell, “A Reporter at Large, Quang Ngai and Quang Tin, 
Part I,” New Yorker , Vietnam Roundup, Magazine Supplement, 9 Mar 68, p. 6, and see 
also p. 7. 

Wiesner, Victims and Survivors , pp. 60, 63-65; Rpt, MACCORDS-RE, 25 Jun 

68, sub: Evaluation Report, Territorial Security in Huong Tra, Huong Thuy, and Phu 
Vong Districts, Thua Thien Province, I Corps Tactical Zone, pp. 8-9, RD Reports, 
CMH; Ltr, CINCPAC to POLAD, 23 Mar 68, sub: Reactions to Combat in An My 
Village, Binh Duong Province, with atch, Report by a Rural Technical Team on 
Popular Reaction in An My Village, Chau Thanh District, Binh Duong Province, 
Historians files, CMH. 

78 George Dexter, “Search and Destroy in Vietnam,” Infantry 56 (July-August 1966): 
41; Bergerud, Red Thunder , pp. 227, 234-36; Memo, James D. Hataway, Jr., for U.S. 
Ambassador, 26 Jan 68, sub: Destruction in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin, p. 5, Historians 
files, CMH; MACV Directive 525-9, 2 Feb 66, sub: Combat Operations, Control, 
Disposition, and Safeguarding of Vietnamese Property and Food Supplies, Historians 
files, CMH; Melman, In the Name of America, pp. 136-37, 139, 140-52, 155, 166-67; 
Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, pp. 62-63; Schell, “A Reporter at Large, Quang Ngai 
and Quang Tin, Part I,” pp. 6-7, 21, and “Part II,” 16 Mar 68, pp. 1-5; Memo, Hataway 
for Ambassador, 12 Dec 67, sub: House Destruction in Quang Ngai and Quang Tin, 
Historians files, CMH. 

g Annual Hist Supplement, 173d Abn Bde (Separate), 1 Jan-31 Dec 65, 1966, pp. 
57-63, Historians files, CMH. 

80 Fact Sheet, Lt Col Bullard, 29 Apr 71, sub: U.S. Civil Assistance Programs in SVN, 
350 Travel Pack, Geo V Vietnam, CMH; Summary Analyses of Weaknesses in Army 
Civil Affairs Activities, atch to Summary Sheet, DCSOPS to CSA, 1 Jun 68, sub: Civil 
Affairs Improvement Program, 72A3468, RG 319, NARA; Pamphlet, 1st Bde, 101st 
Abn Div, Tactical SOP for Counterinsurgency Operations, 1 Dec 66, pp. 137—45. 

81 Raymond Bishop, Jr., Medical Support of Stability Operations: A Vietnam 
Case Study (Student paper, AWC, 1969), pp. 15, 22, 25-34; Spurgeon Neel, Medical 
Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1970, Vietnam Studies (Washington, D.C.: 
Department of the Army, 1973), pp. 162-68. 

x; Bergerud, Dvnamics of Defeat, pp. 165, 272; Hunt, Pacification, pp. 60-61. 

83 A Summary of Lessons Learned, p. 48, atch to Memo, Norton, DCG, USARV, for 
Distribution, 22 Sep 65, sub: A Summary of Lessons Learned, p. 48; Ewell and Hunt, 
Sharpening the Combat Edge, pp. 166-67, 214; Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat, p. 158; 
James O’Brien, “Pacification: Binh Dinh s Season of Change,” Infantry 60 (November- 
December 1970): 24; ORLL, 1 Aug-31 Oct 66, 25th Inf Div, pp. 24-25. 

84 Lawrence Yates, “A Feather in Their Cap? The Marines’ Combined Action Program 
in Vietnam,” in New Interpretations in Naval History, ed. William Roberts and Jack 
Sweetman (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), p. 309; David Brooks, “U.S. 
Marines, Miskitos, and the Hunt for Sandino: The Rio Coco Patrol in 1928,” Journal 
of Latin American Studies 21 (May 1989): 340/? 75; Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, pp. 

69, 78. 

85 Briefing, c. 1965, pp. 7-11, 091 Vietnam, Army Chief of Staff, 68A3306, 
RG 319, NARA; Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 190-91. According to one 
Defense Department study done in 1967, extending the CAP system throughout 
Vietnam would have required 167,000 combat troops and $1.8 billion a year. A more 
optimistic assessment performed by the RAND Corporation two years later when 


415 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


conditions were more favorable reduced the estimated troop requirement to only 
78,000 men—still wildly unobtainable given the fact that the United States had only 
52,000 infantrymen in Vietnam at that time. PROVN, p. 5-18; Hennessy, Strategy 
in Vietnam, pp. 76—77, 127; Southeast Asia Analysis Rpt, USMC Combined Action 
Platoon Program, Jul 67, p. 33, copy in CMH; S. L. Canby et al., Alternative Strategy 
and Force Structure in Vietnam, RAND, 7 Jul 69, pp. 7, 20; Yates, “Feather in Their 
Cap,” in New Interpretations in Naval History , ed. Roberts and Sweetman, p. 311; 
Memo, Maj Gen William Peers, ADCSOPS (Special Ops), for Gen Johnson, 8 Oct 

65, sub: U.S. Marine Corps Emphasis on Counterinsurgency, 68A2344, RG 319, 
NARA. 

86 Quote from Hunt, Pacification , p. 108. Michael Peterson, The Combined Action 
Platoons (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1989), pp. 109-10, 123-24; Yates, “Feather 
in Their Cap,” in New Interpretations in Naval History, ed. Roberts and Sweetman, pp. 
315-21; Hennessy, Strategy in Vietnam, pp. 93-98, 111-13; Gary Telfer, Lane Rogers, 
and V Keith Fleming, US. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967 
(Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 1984), p. 188. 

87 Rpt, MACCORDS-EVAL, 20 Dec 68, sub: Evaluation of Pacification Techniques 
of the 2d Brigade, US 25th Infantry Division, p. 6, Historians files, CMH; Collins, 
Development and Trainings pp. 117—19; Clarke, Final Years, pp. 184-87, 392-402, 
409-17; Hunt, Pacification, pp. 223-27. 

88 DF, XXIV Corps G-3 to Chief of Staff, XXIV Corps, c. 1 Nov 69, sub: Infantry 
Company Intensive Pacification Program, with atchs; Rpt, MACCORDS-EVAL, 7 Jan 
69, sub: Evaluation of U.S. Unit Support of Pacification in II CTZ, pp. 2-3. Both in 
Historians files, CMH. 

89 MACV Lesson Learned 80, U.S. Combat Forces in Support of Pacification, 1970, 
pp. 6-12; William Ankley, Civic Action—Marine or Army Style? (Student paper, AWC, 
1968), p. 9; Yates, “Feather in Their Cap,” in New Interpretations in Naval History, ed. 
Roberts and Sweetman, p. 316. 

g " MACV Directive 525-4, 17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques for Employment 
of US Forces in the Republic of Vietnam, p. 14; Memo, Westmoreland for Distribution, 
7 Jul 65, sub: Minimizing Non-Combatant Casualties; MACV Directive 525-3, 14 Oct 

66, sub: Combat Operations, Minimizing Non-Combatant Battle Casualties. Memo, 
CDC Command Liaison Det, USARV, for Directorate of Doctrine, CDC, 23 Jan 67, sub: 
Civil Affairs Organization and Activities; 25th Infantry Division, p. 3. All in Historians 
files, CMH. 

91 Quote from MACV Directive 525-4, 17 Sep 65, sub: Tactics and Techniques 
for Employment of US Forces in the Republic of Vietnam, p. 2, and see also p. 1; 
HQDA, Final Report of the Research Project: Conduct of the War, May 71, p. 30; 
Scales, Firepower in Limited War, pp. 144^16; Bergerud, Red Thunder, p. 236; Ltr, 
COMUSMACV to Distribution, 7 Jul 65, sub: Minimizing Non-Combatant Casualties, 
Historians files, CMH. 

92 ACTIV, Organization and Employment of Field Artillery, Oct 69, p. 11-12; 
Bergerud, Red Thunder, pp. 84-85; Scales, Firepower in Limited War, pp. 51-52, 87-88; 
Ott, Field Artillery, p. 18. 

43 Krepinevich, Army and Vietnam, pp. 199-200; Wiesner, Victims and Survivors, 
pp. 60-61, 124-25; Thomas Thayer, “How To Analyze a War Without Fronts, Vietnam 
1965-72,” Journal of Defense Research, Series B, Tactical Warfare 7B (Fall 1975): 
863-64. 


416 


The U.S. Army in Vietnam, 1965-1973 


1,4 Quotes from Lesson Outline, Avoidance of Noncombatant Casualties and Property 
Damage (Suggested title, “Kill Your Enemies—Not Your Friends, ,, ), pp. 1, 11, 4, 5, 
respectively, atch to HQDA, Final Report of the Research Project: Conduct of the War, 
May 71. 

9 ' The nine rules were “1. Remember, we are guests here. We make no demands 
and seek no special treatment. 2. Join with the people—Understand their life, use 
phrases from their language and honor their customs and laws. 3. Treat women with 
politeness and respect. 4. Make personal friends among the soldiers and common 
people. 5. Always give the Vietnamese the right of way. 6. Be alert to security and 
ready to react with your military skill. 7. Don’t attract attention by loud, rude, or 
unusual behavior. 8. Avoid separating yourself from the people by a display of wealth 
or privilege. 9. Above all else, you are members of the U.S. Military Forces on a dif¬ 
ficult mission, responsible for all your official and personal actions. Reflect honor 
upon yourself and the United States of America.” Memo, I FFV for Distribution, 13 
May 66, sub: Fact Sheet—The Nine Rules, Historians files, CMH; USARV GTA 
21-1, Sep 67, The Enemy in Your Hands, Historians files, CMH; Lewy, America in 
Vietnam , p. 366. 

96 George Prugh, Law at War: Vietnam, 1964-1973, Vietnam Studies (Washington, 
D.C.: Department of the Army, 1975), pp. 74-76. 

97 Memo, 25th Inf Div, 8 Sep 68, sub: Commander’s Combat Note No. 4, 
Psychological Impact of U.S. Troops on the Vietnamese, 25th Division Commander’s 
Combat Notes, MHI; Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat, pp. 170-76, 225-26. 

98 Quotes from ASubjScd 27-1, The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Hague 
Convention No. IV of 1907, 8 Oct 70, pp. 17-18. Bergerud, Red Thunder, pp. 220-21, 
225, 227, 230; HQDA, Final Report of the Research Project: Conduct of the War, May 

71, pp. 84, 88-91. 

99 Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat, pp. 172-73; Nighswonger, Rural Pacification, p. 9. 

100 ORLL 4-67, Observations of a Battalion Commander, p. 32; Graves, “Observations 
of a Platoon Leader, Part I,” pp. 36-37; David Hackworth, “No Magic Formula,” 
Infantry 57 (January-February 1967): 33. 

101 Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare, p. 123. 

102 Doughty, Army Tactical Doctrine, p. 40; Bergerud, Dynamics of Defeat, p. 
335; Komer, Bureaucracy at War, pp. 10, 12, 16-17, 21-22; Hennessy, Strategy 
in Vietnam, pp. 8-9; Lawrence Grinter, “Nation Building, Counterinsurgency, 
and Military Intervention,” in The Limits of Military Intervention, ed. Ellen Stern 
(Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publishing, 1977), p. 250; Stephen Rosen, “Vietnam and 
the American Theory of Limited War,” International Security 7 (Fall 1982): 84-86, 
88-98; William Olson, “The Concept of Small Wars,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 
1 (April 1990): 40-41, 44-45; Michael Cannon, “The Development of the American 
Theory of Limited War, 1945-1963,” Armed Forces and Society 9 (Fall 1992): 

72, 76-77, 85, 92-93; William Olson, “United States Objectives and Constraints: 
An Overview,” in Guerrilla Warfare and Counterinsurgency: United States-Soviet 
Policy in the Third World, ed. Richard H. Shultz et al. (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington 
Books, 1989), pp. 23-26; Harry Summers, “Vietnam: Lessons Learned, Unlearned, 
Relearned,” in Military Strategy: Theory and Application, A Reference Text for the 
Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, 1983-1984, ed. Arthur 
F. Lykke, Jr. (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 1983), pp. 12-38; 
Raymond Barrett, “Graduated Response and the Lessons of Vietnam,” Military 


417 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Review 52 (May 1972): 80-91; George Herring, “The Johnson Administration’s 
Conduct of Limited War in Vietnam,” in Looking Back, ed. Head and Grinter, pp. 
80-81, 86; Richard Betts, “Misadventure Revisited,” in Vietnam as History, ed. Peter 
Braestrup (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 5-8; Herbert 
Schandler, “America and Vietnam: The Failure of Strategy, 1964-67,” in Vietnam as 
History, ed. Braestrup, pp. 23-26. 


418 



The Evolution of Doctrine 

1965-1975 


When American combat troops began deploying to Vietnam in 
March 1965, Army leaders were in the midst of reviewing counterin¬ 
surgency doctrine. Several years of frenetic activity had left the service 
with a large, but somewhat disjointed body of doctrinal literature. 
Although the Army judged its doctrine to be adequate, Army Chief of 
Staff General Johnson believed it could do better. In August 1964 he had 
launched a “Program for Analysis of U.S. Counterinsurgency Doctrine 
and Organization,” a multiphased effort which he hoped would produce a 
more comprehensive, more sophisticated, and more tightly written corpus 
of doctrinal thought. Such an endeavor would take time to bring to frui¬ 
tion, time that the Army did not have. Six months after General Johnson 
launched the review program, President Johnson deployed marines to 
Vietnam, with Army combat troops following two months later. 

During the early 1960s many Americans had come to regard 
Vietnam as a laboratory in which America could test its military and 
social theories from afar. Now the experimenters had become par¬ 
ticipants. If the effort would ultimately prove to be a failure, it at least 
generated a tremendous amount of data for the analysts back home. 
After 1965 information from Southeast Asia inundated the Army. 
Lessons learned reports, after action reports, quarterly command 
reports, annual historical reports, MACV directives, and the reports of 
special study teams—not to mention the anecdotal observations of tens 
of thousands of returning veterans—all vied for the attention of state¬ 
side doctrine writers, instructors, and trainers. At the height of the war 
Combat Developments Command was reviewing an average of seventy 


419 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Vietnam reports per month and identifying approximately forty “les¬ 
sons” requiring some action by the doctrinal and training systems. So 
great were the Army’s efforts at self-examination—arguably the most 
extensive in Army history—that critics charged that the service had 
gone too far, generating more information than it could ever use. While 
the Army may have gone overboard in trying to capture the lessons of 
Vietnam, the effort attested to its determination to learn and adapt. The 
result was a far richer tapestry of materials—from manuals to training 
films—than would have been produced otherwise. 1 

Words and Organizations 

By the time the first U.S. combat units arrived in Vietnam, Combat 
Developments Command had completed many of the preliminary stud¬ 
ies called for in General Johnson’s review program. But important tasks 
still remained to be done. One of the seemingly least important, yet 
ultimately most troubling, had to do with sorting out the arcane world 
of counterinsurgency terminology. 

The counterinsurgency wave of the early 1960s had left the mili¬ 
tary awash in buzzwords. Combat Developments Command attempted 
to untangle the linguistic muddle in July 1965 by drafting a study 
on “Definitions To Support Counterinsurgency Doctrine.” The study 
received a cold reception at the Pentagon’s Office of the Deputy Chief 
of Staff for Military Operations, which immediately produced a coun¬ 
terproposal—a new family of terms crafted by Maj. David R. Hughes 
that identified what Hughes believed were the two central tasks in 
counterinsurgency, internal defense and internal development. When 
the competing proposals went forward to the chief of staff, Johnson 
chose a course that, if anything, made matters worse rather than better. 2 
Stating that “we need to express what we are for, rather than what we are 
against,” he rejected CDC’s recommendation that the Army continue to 
use the term counterinsurgency , embracing instead Hughes’ new lexi¬ 
con. As defined by the Army in 1966, internal defense constituted “the 
full range of measures taken by a government to protect its society from 
subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency,” while internal development 
involved “the strengthening of the roots, functions, and capabilities of 
government and the viability of its national life toward the end of inter¬ 
nal independence and freedom from conditions fostering insurgency.” 
Henceforth, Army doctrinal materials were to use the new phraseology 
exclusively, erasing all traces of the word counterinsurgency . 3 

The chief of staff soon learned, however, that rank was no match 
for the power of words. Five years of intense salesmanship had embla- 


420 





The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


zoned counterinsurgency into the 
collective consciousness of sol¬ 
diers and civilians alike, and no 
ukase could readily change that. 

Moreover, the rest of the U.S. 
government continued to use the 
term. To Johnson’s chagrin, there¬ 
fore, the Army had no choice but 
to continue to include counterin¬ 
surgency in its official dictionary 
despite the systematic removal of 
the word from Army manuals after 
1966. 4 

Although General Johnson had 
adopted Hughes’ internal defense 
and internal development para¬ 
digm, he partly accepted CDC’s 
recommendation that the Army replace the old terms general , limited , 
and cold war with a new set of terms that divided the spectrum of con¬ 
flict by levels of intensity— high, mid , and low. Henceforth manuals 
would continue to use the old terms, while doctrinal studies employed 
the levels of intensity phraseology. This decision added yet another 
layer of terminology without bringing additional clarity. In practice, the 
term low intensity conflict (LIC) became synonymous with counterin¬ 
surgency and internal defense and development. Combat Developments 
Command further particularized LIC into two subcategories—low 
intensity conflict type I, which involved the commitment of U.S. com¬ 
bat forces, and low intensity conflict type II, which involved the provi¬ 
sion of advice and support short of direct intervention. 

The situation became even murkier when General Johnson insisted 
on introducing his own linguistic invention, stability operations. Johnson 
described stability operations as the “employment of force to maintain, 
restore, or create a climate of order under which a government under 
law can function effectively,” a task that he argued encompassed the 
Army’s third principal mission. Unfortunately, while Johnson insisted 
that Army literature use the expression stability operations , he opted 
against including it in the Army dictionary. Thus what had begun as an 
effort to bring clarity to doctrine by imposing order in Army phraseol¬ 
ogy had produced the exact opposite effect—more, rather than fewer, 
terms, with a concomitant increase in confusion. 

Because General Johnson did not include stability operations in the 
Army dictionary and because his order to rescind the use of the term 



Chief of Staff General Johnson 


421 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


counterinsurgency had been directed only to CDC and not CONARC, 
some schools initially refused to use the terminology stability opera¬ 
tions, citing regulations that required that schools employ only offi¬ 
cially defined terms. Moreover, for many soldiers the exact relationship 
between cold war , low intensity conflict , counterinsurgency , internal 
defense and internal development , and stability operations was anything 
but clear. Some manuals implied that stability operations were syn¬ 
onymous with counterinsurgency and internal defense and development. 
Others portrayed stability operations as a subset of internal defense 
dealing primarily with overseas constabulary and intervention-type 
missions, and thus more akin to the older phrase situations short of war , 
which was gradually falling out of use in favor of the term cold war.' 

A semblance of order began to emerge in 1967 when the Army 
finally included stability operations in its official dictionary. As the new 
lexicon ultimately emerged, internal defense and internal development 
referred to all government programs designed to counter instability in a 
foreign country, while stability operations referred to the military’s role 
in internal defense and development—a thin cover for what otherwise 
was an unnecessary redundancy. Still, the confusion took some time to 
dissipate because the Army would take several years to fully incorpo¬ 
rate the new terms throughout its family of manuals. 6 

Perhaps the best example of how the spirit of “overthink” corrupted 
the development of doctrine can be seen in the area of acronyms. During 
the 1960s the Army demonstrated an unsettling penchant for changing 
acronyms for little or no reason. The introduction of the internal defense 
and internal development family of terms likewise meant that many 
older terms had to be changed to fit the new paradigm, despite the fact 
that the meaning and function of the entities the expressions described 
had not changed at all. Thus, the Environmental Improvement Program 
(EIP) became Internal Development (IDEV), the National Internal 
Security Committee (NISC) became the National Internal Defense 
Coordination Center (NIDCC), and the Counterinsurgency Operations 
Group (CIOG) became the Internal Defense/Development Operations 
Group (ID/DOG). Worst of all, the Army could not settle on an acro¬ 
nym for its flagship term, internal defense and internal development. 
By 1975 the Army had changed the acronym for internal defense and 
internal development five times—from IDID to ID/D to IDD to IDAID 
to IDAD—without any change in the meaning of the phrase itself, a 
pointless exercise that sowed confusion and cynicism throughout the 
ranks. 

Words were not the only stumbling blocks to the formulation of doc¬ 
trine. As in the early 1960s, organizational issues continued to impede 


422 





The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


the smooth development and transmission of doctrine. Although the 
production of manuals was a major CDC responsibility, it often took a 
backseat to the command’s other missions—material research and the 
production of long-term studies. So cumbersome was the manual coor¬ 
dination and review process that by 1967 CDC Commander Lt. Gen. 
Harry W. O. Kinnard complained of “severe turbulence in our doctrinal 
literature program.” The bifurcation of the Army’s doctrinal and training 
functions between Combat Developments Command and Continental 
Army Command likewise continued to create barriers between doctrine 
writers and educators. Although the Army made some improvements, 
difficulties remained, and the doctrinal development, training, and edu¬ 
cation functions performed by CDC and CONARC would not reunite 
into a single entity, the Training and Doctrine Command, until 1973. 7 

While shortcomings inherent in the doctrine development process 
adversely affected all aspects of Army doctrine, counterinsurgency 
remained a particularly thorny problem. Like nuclear warfare, it did 
not fit easily into the Army’s doctrinal establishment because it created 
an operational milieu that was significantly different from conventional 
warfare—one that was specialized on the one hand and yet which also 
cut across all branch and functional lines. Consequently, Army leaders 
continued to struggle with the question of whether counterinsurgency 
doctrine was better concentrated in the hands of a few specialists, or 
should responsibility for different pieces of the counterinsurgency 
puzzle be farmed out to nearly every agency in CDC. Ultimately, they 
vacillated between the two approaches. 

In 1966 Combat Developments Command initiated a general 
reorganization that grouped all of its subordinate agencies into three 
broad, functional categories—combat, combat support, and combat 
service support. Reflecting General Johnson’s belief that stability 
operations were a mission for the entire Army and not just Special 
Forces, CDC broke up the Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group. 
The command placed the Special Warfare Agency (which retained 
responsibility for developing broad counterinsurgency principles for 
type II low intensity conflicts and for reviewing the manuals devel¬ 
oped by other agencies for counterinsurgency content) under the new 
Combat Arms Group and returned the Civil Affairs Agency to its 
original parent entity, the Combat Service Support Group. The move 
disturbed the synergy the Army had attempted to create in 1964 when 
it had brought these two agencies under the supervision of a single 
group headquarters. On the other hand, by eliminating the Special 
Warfare and Civil Affairs Group, CDC was indicating that the com¬ 
mand believed that counterinsurgency doctrine had matured to the 


423 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

point where it could take its place as a normal part of the doctrinal 
system without the support of extraordinary bureaucratic mecha¬ 
nisms. 8 

The new arrangement was short lived. In 1967 the Army reversed 
course and placed the Civil Affairs Agency under the supervision of 
the Combat Arms Group. Not only did the switch reunite supervisory 
control over the development of civil affairs and counterinsurgency 
doctrine, but it symbolically elevated civil affairs to the status of a 
combat arm—a clear reflection of the Army’s growing appreciation for 
the importance of political matters in contemporary warfare. 9 

Still, Army leaders remained uncomfortable with the doctrine 
development process. General Johnson sought to create greater unity in 
1968 when he ordered the Civil Affairs Agency to move to Fort Bragg 
and combine with the Special Warfare Agency under a new umbrella 
organization, the Institute of Strategic and Stability Operations, an 
organization that reported directly to CDC headquarters. The establish¬ 
ment of this agency (reorganized as the Institute of Military Assistance 
in 1973) brought the formulation of doctrine for several stability-related 
functions—civil affairs, politico-military affairs, nation building, advi¬ 
sory assistance, psychological operations, and special forces—under a 
single entity at a single location. The institute was also able to wrest 
proponency for the Army’s capstone counterinsurgency manual, FM 
100-20, from the Institute of Advanced Studies at Carlisle Barracks. 

The formation of the institute at Fort Bragg finally centralized 
responsibility for the four manuals that established overarching coun¬ 
terinsurgency doctrine in the late 1960s (FM 100-20; FM 31-22; 
FM 31-23, Stability Operations: US. Army Doctrine [1967]; and 
FM 31-73). Nevertheless, control over several other key manuals, 
including FM 31—16, Counterguerrilla Operations , remained under 
their parent agencies, as did the development of all other branch and 
functional manuals into which stability operations material needed 
to be integrated. Turf and philosophical battles between Fort Bragg 
and these agencies over the amount of counterinsurgency doctrine 
to be incorporated into the general corpus of Army literature would 
never be resolved, with the result that coverage of counterinsurgency 
subjects at the branch level continued to be uneven throughout the 
Vietnam War. 10 


Doctrinal Developments, 1966-1967 

While the Army wrestled with language and organizational ques¬ 
tions, CDC’s Special Warfare Agency completed a major study titled 


424 




The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


“Counterguerrilla Warfare Doctrine” in January 1966. The agency 
concluded that while Army doctrine was “in the main, sound, up-to- 
date, and beamed at the right enemy,” it suffered from several defects. 
According to the Army’s counterinsurgency experts, current doctrine 
gave the erroneous impression that phase III counterguerrilla warfare 
was essentially equivalent to conventional combat. This insight, born 
out of the dilficulties the Army was experiencing in coming to grips 
with enemy main force units in Vietnam, was somewhat ironic, since 
this very same agency just a year before had declared that doctrine for 
large-unit counterinsurgency warfare “will be essentially that of gen¬ 
eral war or limited war.” 11 

To correct their mistake, the doctrine writers at Fort Bragg recom¬ 
mended that future manuals remind their readers of the differences 
between conventional and guerrilla warfare. The study especially noted 
that “combat power will have to be applied selectively and its effects 
modified to preclude harming the population. In many instances, U.S. 
commanders will be faced with choosing between a course of action 
which will assure entrance into a given area with minimum U.S. losses, 
and a course of action which will require him to apply his combat 
power with less violence, and more selectively so as not to harm the 
population, but at the same time increasing the probability that more 
U.S. casualties will accrue.” Although this statement accurately por¬ 
trayed one of the central dilemmas of counterinsurgency operations, 
opposition from within the officer corps to any suggestion that com¬ 
manders willingly accept greater casualties led the Army to omit the 
final clause of this statement in future manuals. 12 

Although the conduct of phase III warfare was of great concern 
to the authors of the study, they also pointed out other shortcom¬ 
ings in contemporary doctrine. Among the subjects requiring greater 
treatment were border control; riverine, police, and clear-and-hold 
operations; intelligence; civil-military and state-to-state relations; 
and mine, electronic, unconventional, and chemical warfare (to 
include defoliation and crop destruction). In many cases these were 
areas that experience in Vietnam had indicated a need for additional 
doctrinal amplification. The report also reiterated previous CDC stud¬ 
ies in advocating greater coverage of counterinsurgency throughout 
the manual system. On the other hand, the Special Warfare Agency 
also decried redundancy, recommending that FM 31-15, Operations 
Against Irregular Forces (1961), be scrapped since much of its con¬ 
tent duplicated what appeared in later manuals, such as FM 100-20 
(1964), FM 31-22 (1963), and FM 31-16 (1963). 13 CDC accepted 
most of Fort Bragg’s recommendations, incorporating them into 


425 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


manuals over the next few years. Still, rifts remained over the extent 
to which Vietnam-style techniques were appropriate to include in 
manuals intended for general application. 

In 1966 the Army published two manuals that illustrate the state of 
counterinsurgency doctrine during the Army’s first full year of com¬ 
bat in Vietnam—FM 33-5, Psychological Operations—Techniques 
and Procedures , and FM 41-5, Joint Manual for Civil Affairs. 
Psychological Operations featured an expanded and rewritten sec¬ 
tion on insurgency and counterinsurgency. In line with the prevailing 
currents of doctrinal thought, the manual identified development and 
modernization as the keys to eliminating insurgency, noting that “no 
tactical counterinsurgent program can be effective for long without 
major nation-building programs.” It further asserted that the coun¬ 
terinsurgent’s ultimate aim must be the creation of a nontotalitarian 
government worthy of public support. Though recognizing the pitfalls 
of the modernization process, FM 33-5 (1966) urged nation builders 
to create societies in which power was shared widely among different 
social groups, a difficult goal given the nature of most third world 
societies and the perils of dispersing authority in the midst of a crisis. 
In addition to adding new sections on insurgent and counterinsurgent 
psychological methods, the manual reiterated the traditional caution 
that “a few rash, undisciplined acts will jeopardize popular support 
and the entire operation,” a caution that, the manual lamented, was too 
seldom heeded because “experience has shown that many command¬ 
ers give too little emphasis to the psychological aspects of military 
operations. Too often, long range political objectives are sacrificed 
for temporary tactical gains.” 14 

FM 41-5, Joint Manual for Civil Affairs , was important because 
it represented the first statement of interservice civil affairs doctrine 
since the advent of the counterinsurgency era. Four years in the making 
(largely due to coordination problems with the Air Force), FM 41-5 
(1966) differed from previous civil affairs doctrine in that it focused 
not on the government of occupied areas, but on the many civil-mili¬ 
tary situations that confronted military forces short of a major war. 
The manual urged commanders to avoid ethnocentric behavior and 
discussed the many issues that might adversely impinge on the estab¬ 
lishment of smooth relations between the Army and a sovereign society. 
It did not, however, break any new ground. Indeed, its observation that 
“operations directed against insurgents entail a delicate combination of 
necessary force and measures taken to relieve sources of unrest,” essen¬ 
tially reiterated the same principles of firm, yet fair, treatment that had 
characterized the Army’s approach to pacification for over a century. 15 


426 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


While 1966 was a relatively slow year for doctrinal publications, 
1967 witnessed the emergence of a second generation of counterinsur¬ 
gency manuals, bringing to fruition Chief of Staff General Johnson’s 
1964 reform program. Together these manuals covered the full range of 
counterinsurgency doctrine, from national policy to small-unit actions. 
Missing from their number, however, was FM 31-15, which Combat 
Developments Command rescinded on the grounds of redundancy. 

At the top of the doctrinal heap was a new edition of FM 100-20, 
Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and Development , pre¬ 
pared by the Institute of Advanced Studies. Released in May 1967 
after a year’s delay caused by confusion over the introduction of the 
new internal defense and stability operations terminology, this manual 
fulfilled the same role as its 1964 predecessor in outlining U.S. national 
policy vis-a-vis third world insurgency. It examined the nature of mod¬ 
ernization and insurgency and discussed America’s response to these 
phenomena as contained in the 1962 Overseas Internal Defense Policy. 
FM 100-20 (1967) also related recent government policy that encour¬ 
aged U.S. embassies in countries threatened by insurgency to establish 
an office to coordinate all in-country counterinsurgency efforts, though 
it declined to establish a fixed title or structure for such an entity, leav¬ 
ing such decisions to the ambassador. 

Following General Johnson’s direction, FM 100-20 (1967) for¬ 
mally enshrined in official doctrine the policy that stability operations 
were the Army’s third principal mission. In line with CDC study recom¬ 
mendations, the manual also devoted somewhat greater attention to the 
noncombat side of counterinsurgency warfare—police, intelligence, 
civil affairs, psyops, advisory, and population- and resources-control 
matters. Overall, however, FM 100-20 (1967) differed little from the 
1964 edition. It had a somewhat more sophisticated view of insurgency, 
but did not materially alter long-standing doctrine." 

Just below FM 100-20 (1967) in the doctrinal pecking order was 
FM 31-23, Stability Operations: U.S. Army Doctrine. FM 31-23 (1967) 
was an entirely new manual written by the Special Warfare Agency as a 
partial replacement for FM 31-15 (1961). Although FM 31—23’s stated 
purpose was to elaborate on the Army’s own particular role in internal 
defense and development, it repeated much of the information found in 
FM 100-20 (1967), thereby undermining the Army’s efforts to elimi¬ 
nate redundancy. Nevertheless, it was an excellent manual, providing 
extensive coverage of America’s approach to countering third world 
instability. 

Stability Operations illustrated several trends that increasingly 
characterized post-1965 doctrine. First, while the manual adhered to 


427 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Rostow’s thesis of rising expectations, it portrayed modernization in a 
more sociological context and less in terms of material development. 
Economic development remained central, but the manual exhibited 
greater cognizance of the role that values played in shaping societies. 
According to the manual, the key to modernization (which the manual 
defined as “striving toward an advanced economy and an efficient, pop¬ 
ularly supported government”) was to effect a change in the indigenous 
society’s “value system.” This entailed breaking down traditional mores 
and replacing them with new ones, all the while avoiding the “unwar¬ 
ranted application of our own political and cultural values”—tricky 
business for even the most accomplished social engineer. 17 

Like all previous manuals, FM 31-23 placed great emphasis on 
winning popular support through a combination of good troop con¬ 
duct, moderate control measures, discriminate force, and “vital and 
dynamic” socioeconomic programs. However, the manual differed 
slightly from FM 33-5, Psychological Operations—Techniques and 
Procedures (1966), in that it had more sober expectations with regard 
to political reform. Although a “remedial political development pro¬ 
gram” remained a key aspect of American policy, FM 31-23 refrained 
from calling for the establishment of democracy, stating that “a general 
rule cannot be established pinpointing the time at which the population 
should begin to participate in the governmental process, but procedures 
which permit the people to bring their problems to the government 
should be established as early as possible.” This view, together with 
increased warnings against trying to impose American institutions on 
alien cultures, reflected lessons from Latin America and Asia, where 
U.S. nation builders had experienced great difficulties in persuading 
allied governments to live up to American political ideals. 1 " 

A similar retrenchment was evident in the realm of civic action. 
Although Stability Operations continued to stress the importance of 
civil considerations in military operations, it acknowledged that recent 
experience had taught that “‘do-goodism’ for do-goodism’s sake sel¬ 
dom is beneficial, often is costly, and in many instances may provoke 
and alienate the population rather than win its support.” Consequently, 
FM 31-23 (1967) reiterated earlier doctrine that, to be effective, civic 
action programs had to be carefully crafted. 14 

Another thrust of the new doctrine, again bom from recent experi¬ 
ence, was the increased emphasis the manual placed on counterinfrastruc¬ 
ture activities. Army doctrine in the 1950s had recognized the importance 
of eliminating guerrilla leaders and uprooting the underground organiza¬ 
tions that sustained insurgent movements, but in the early 1960s these 
practical considerations had been overshadowed in the minds of some 


428 



The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


theorists by a somewhat romantic view of insurgency. According to this 
line of thought, if revolutions were truly popular movements spawned by 
social injustices, a strategy that focused on eliminating the leaders rather 
than rectifying underlying social problems was misguided and futile. 
Practical experience in Vietnam reminded theorists that revolutions, like 
all human activities, require organization and leadership, no matter how 
just or popular the cause might be. Consequently, the Army began to 
take a harder look at the infrastructure question. The manual not only 
provided greater detail about Communist organizational methods, but 
it also made the elimination of the insurgent leadership a top priority. It 
similarly stressed the importance of population security, to be achieved 
largely through the auspices of village-based police and paramilitary 
formations. 20 

Reflecting the increased importance assigned to noncombat tasks, 
FM 31-23 added the appellation “operations” to subject headings cov¬ 
ering civil affairs, intelligence, and population and resources control, 
symbolically elevating their status to a level equal with tactical opera¬ 
tions. It reinforced this point by leaving the discussion of combat opera¬ 
tions to last, a distinct shift from earlier manuals. Still, coverage of 
combat operations remained far more extensive than any other subject, 
and FM 31-23 firmly upheld the service’s traditional view that, once 
the shooting started, military operations had to take priority over civil 
improvements, with meaningful reforms being postponed until after 
military requirements had been satisfied and security restored. 21 

In considering military actions, Stability Operations introduced 
a new paradigm by dividing military activities into three types of 
campaigns: strike, consolidation, and remote area. Strike campaigns 
consisted of offensive missions designed to find, fix, and destroy the 
enemy. Consolidation campaigns involved clear-and-hold, oil-spot- 
style pacification measures, while remote area campaigns correspond¬ 
ed to contemporary Special Forces activities with the Montagnards in 
Vietnam. The execution of these activities remained largely as they had 
been explained in earlier manuals. When the enemy was strong—as 
in phase III—large units and massed artillery would be used to attack 
the insurgents’ major units and bases, compelling them to break down 
into smaller, less menacing entities. Once this goal had been achieved, 
government forces would break down into progressively smaller units 
to wage a relentless war of raid, ambush, and saturation patrolling that 
would eventually wear the guerrillas down and pave the way for the 
establishment of effective pacification measures. 22 

As in the first generation of counterinsurgency manuals, the 
details of how these operations were to be conducted was left to the 


429 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Army’s premier counterguerrilla manual, FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla 
Operations , which the Army republished in March 1967. Like FM 100— 
20 (1967), publication of this manual had been delayed for over a year 
due to confusion over the new terminology, as well as disagreements 
between the manual’s parent organization—the Infantry Agency—and 
the Special Warfare Agency. 23 

FM 31-16 (1967) reflected the Army’s growing appreciation for 
noncombat issues by elevating civil affairs from an auxiliary to a pri¬ 
mary weapon system. Rather than leave civil questions to civil affairs 
personnel, Counterguerrilla Operations emphasized that civil affairs 
was a command responsibility and that plans at all levels must include 
civil and psychological considerations. In line with the prevailing 
philosophy, the manual deliberately dropped earlier advice that sol¬ 
diers should discomfort civilians during searches so as not to muddle 
the doctrine’s primary theme that “abusive, excessive, or inconsider¬ 
ate search methods” only served to increase civilian support for the 
enemy. The manual also included for the first time a small psyops 
section and repeatedly urged commanders to exercise discretion in 
employing supporting fires, though it continued to endorse harass¬ 
ment and interdiction fire. 24 

Based on the Special Warfare Agency’s concern that earlier 
manuals had not drawn sufficient distinction between conventional 
and unconventional warfare, the manual highlighted the differences 
between rear area security in a conventional war and counterinsur¬ 
gency. Though the point was neither new nor invalid, the doctrine writ¬ 
ers descended into hyperbole when they asserted that “local political 
activities are normally not a major consideration affecting the activities 
of counterguerrilla forces in limited and general warfare situations,” a 
dangerously misleading statement that reflected more the determina¬ 
tion of counterinsurgency enthusiasts to assert the uniqueness of their 
field than objective, historical analysis. 25 

FM 31-16 (1967) made a more valid point when discussing the 
differences between conventional warfare and a phase III insurgency. 
Following the lead of “Counterguerrilla Warfare Doctrine,” the manual 
reflected contemporary experience in Vietnam by cautioning that even 
in large-unit mobile warfare, 

maneuvers such as envelopments, penetrations, and turning movements may 
not produce the same effects on guerrilla forces as they would on field army- 
type tactical forces. Caches, guerrilla safe areas, and populations sympathetic 
to, or dominated by, the guerrilla may be so dispersed that guerrilla units are 
not dependent on a few critical logistical bases which they must protect. Under 
these conditions, a turning movement, for example, launched by counterguer- 


430 




The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


rilla forces to cause the guerrilla force to react to protect a base, may produce 
movement in entirely different directions than those anticipated. 26 

The inclusion of the term main forces in the 1967 edition of 
FM 31-16 to describe “guerrilla regular armed forces” reflected a 
movement toward incorporating Vietnam-related material into Army 
manuals. FM 31-16 (1967) introduced cursory discussions of such 
Vietnam-oriented subjects as tunnel searches, air base defense, and the 
construction of patrol bases. Warning that the usual measurements of 
success—battles won and terrain occupied—were not meaningful in a 
guerrilla context, the manual counseled soldiers that “protraction and 
attrition in internal defense and development counterguerrilla opera¬ 
tions must be expected and accommodated.” FM 31-16 (1967) also 
reflected experience by altering counterambush procedures, stating 
that ambushed convoys should continue to move forward, not stop as 
FM 31-16 (1963) had directed. The manual encouraged units assigned 
to consolidation operations to devote “maximum effort” to organizing 
indigenous security and paramilitary forces. Finally, Counterguerrilla 
Operations called for “painstaking training” in night operations, while 
cautioning that “offensive tactics are not to be emphasized to the detri¬ 
ment of the defense,” a clear recognition that while U.S. doctrine was 
operationally offensive, U.S. troops in Vietnam frequently fought on the 
tactical defensive. 27 

While Counterguerrilla Operations included some of the terms that 
had sprung from the conflict in Vietnam, it did not do so unreservedly. 
Thus, while the manual made a passing reference to search-and-destroy 
operations, it did so only for the purpose of stating that such operations 
were subsumed under the new, official term strike operations. Part of 
the reason for this was that doctrinal writers were averse to includ¬ 
ing too many colloquialisms and nonstandard terms into doctrine. 
However, the phrase search and destroy had also accrued some nega¬ 
tive connotations in the public mind—images of fruitless searching and 
seemingly excessive destruction—which the Army was anxious to 
dispel. Consequently, the term would never achieve doctrinal status, as 
most manuals preferred to use phrases like offensive operations , strike 
operations , or reconnaissance in force. 

Although Counterguerrilla Operations' text embraced the new 
terminology of strike and consolidation operations , its discussion of 
the operational and tactical details of counterguerrilla warfare did not 
differ materially from prewar doctrine. Nor did the manual endorse any 
one particular operational method over another. It recommended exten¬ 
sive small-unit patrols to consolidate government gains and harass the 


431 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


enemy when he was weak or when the government lacked the resources 
to challenge him fully and large-unit offensives employing encircle¬ 
ment tactics and “mass artillery fires” to destroy major enemy forma¬ 
tions and bases whenever they were found. These operations were to be 
undertaken against a backdrop of civil, intelligence, and police mea¬ 
sures designed to isolate the guerrilla “physically and psychologically 
from the civilian support,” as the government systematically moved 
forward with an oil-spot-style campaign of progressive area clearance. 
All of this sounded distinctly familiar not only because it mirrored pre¬ 
war doctrine, but also because it reflected how operations were actually 
being conducted in Vietnam—operations that were themselves firmly 
rooted in that older body of knowledge. 29 

While FM 31-16 (1967) explained the role of combat brigades 
in internal defense and development operations, new versions of FM 
31-73, Adviser Handbook for Stability Operations , and FM 21-75, 
Combat Training of the Individual Soldier and Patrolling , spread the 
gospel to individual soldiers and advisers. FM 31-73 (1967) differed 
little from its predecessor and continued to relate valuable informa¬ 
tion on counterinsurgency and advisory subjects. Though intended 
for a general audience, it inevitably took on an increasingly Vietnam 
flavor. FM 21-75 (1967) likewise added much Vietnam-oriented sub¬ 
ject matter. The manual greatly expanded its coverage of patrolling, 
ambush, and counterambush techniques, relating specific tactics to 
different operational environments, from jungles to rice paddies. The 
text described Viet Cong tactics and added a new section on methods 
to be used in search-and-destroy operations. The manual also continued 
its 1962 predecessor’s efforts to draw attention to the political side of 
counterguerrilla warfare, reminding its readers that “the culture, cus¬ 
toms, and spiritual values of the people may be quite different from 
ours, but they are just as much a source of pride as our own. You must 
respect them. Proper behavior toward the people and any assistance or 
display of friendship for them will go far toward reducing their support 
for the guerrillas and securing their help in defeating the guerrillas. . . . 
Exercise self-discipline at all times and deal with the local population 
in a firm, just, and understanding manner.” 30 

Perhaps one of the most glaring weaknesses of Army doctrine 
during the first half of the 1960s was the relative paucity of informa¬ 
tion on the intelligence aspects of counterinsurgency. Every manual 
spoke of the pivotal importance that intelligence played in stability 
operations, and a number provided some broad guidance, but few had 
moved beyond generalities to discuss in detail how intelligence func¬ 
tions were to be conducted. In 1967 the Army Intelligence Agency 


432 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


endeavored to redress this shortcoming by publishing a new edition of 
FM 30—5, Combat Intelligence , that added two pages to the manual’s 
counterinsurgency section. True relief came, however, in the form of 
FM 30—31, Stability Operations—Intelligence (1967). Accompanying 
this manual was a classified companion text—FM 30-31 A, Stability 
Operations—Intelligence Collection —which explored the more arcane 
aspects of the trade. Together, these manuals integrated the intelligence 
field into the broader counterinsurgency literature, describing how 
conventional intelligence techniques could best be applied in an uncon¬ 
ventional setting. 31 

Just as the production of FM 30-31 (1967) belatedly addressed the 
1964 doctrinal revision program’s requirements vis-a-vis intelligence, 
publication of a new version of FM 41—10, Civil Affairs Operations , 
in 1967 was intended to fulfill the review program’s demand for new 
civil affairs doctrine. Although the civil affairs community had been 
one of the chief promoters of civic action within the Army, the doctrine 
and organization of the Army’s civil affairs units had remained largely 
oriented toward the execution of traditional military government opera¬ 
tions. FM 41-5 (1966) had heralded a new departure in this regard, but 
General Johnson was still not satisfied. Declaring “we must sweep the 
World War II ghost out of the Civil Affairs house and refurnish it with 
new concepts,” General Johnson demanded that the civil affairs com¬ 
munity become more relevant to contemporary conditions. Civil Affairs 
Operations (1967) attempted to do just that. 32 

FM 41-10 (1967) reflected the Army’s new emphasis on civil- 
military relations on its very first page when it declared that “the Army 
lives in an environment of people,” a statement not unlike Mao’s anal¬ 
ogy of the guerrilla existing in a human sea. While the manual noted 
that political and military issues were always intertwined, it asserted 
that this was particularly true in stability operations, where every mili¬ 
tary action had to be executed with an eye toward the paramount goal of 
winning popular support. Consequently, the manual greatly expanded 
its coverage of civil affairs in unconventional settings, with one chapter 
on civil-military relations in the Cold War and two chapters on internal 
defense and development. 33 

FM 41-10 (1967) downplayed vertical military government organi¬ 
zation for a more decentralized system in which civil affairs units were 
subordinated to local tactical commanders in a fashion conducive to the 
conduct of integrated civil-military operations in a sovereign, friendly 
country. Like the other manuals published in 1967, Civil Affairs 
Operations strongly asserted that civil affairs was a command respon¬ 
sibility at every echelon. It further postulated that soldiers should act 


433 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


as social “technicians” and “innovators,” blending their administrative 
skills with “an appreciation of societal microcosms” to “eliminate 
the insurgent movement at its roots.” 34 On the other hand, the manual 
cautioned that American “civil affairs personnel must have a ready 
comprehension that what is best in the United States is not necessar¬ 
ily always best in other social, political, and economic circumstances 
and must also understand that the United States is less concerned with 
making over other nations in its own image than in helping countries 
to help themselves .” 35 

As in earlier doctrine, FM 41-10 (1967) asserted that civic action 
represented the single greatest vehicle through which soldiers could 
influence a developing society. Civil Affairs Operations tried to portray 
civic action in a realistic light. It admitted, for example, that “military 
civic action cannot by itself produce a satisfied populace in areas where 
basic discontent centers around long standing political, economic, 
or social grievances.” Similarly, it warned that “mere generosity on 
the part of U.S. troops is not enough, particularly when that generos¬ 
ity is practiced with an unconscious show of wealth, a disregard for 
local custom, or is accompanied by loud or unusual behavior.” FM 
41-10 (1967) reviewed the usual list of criteria for effective civic 
action projects, stressing that soldiers foster villager participation in 
both the conceptualization and realization of a project. The manual 
differed from some previous discussions of civic action, however, by 
laying down a rather narrow definition of what civic action actually 
was. According to FM 41-10 (1967), “military civic actions should be 
designed to make real, lasting improvements to the social, economic, 
and political environment.” Actions intended simply to curry favor or 
to make superficial changes did not rise to the level of civic actions but 
were, at best, community relations activities. Thus, building a school 
was inherently a civic action—even if the act failed to win friends for 
the government—as it offered the prospect of long-term social change 
through education. On the other hand, sponsoring an outing for chil¬ 
dren was not a civic action, even if it had the effect of building better 
relations with the community. FM 41-10 (1967) took a dim view of all 
such community relations endeavors, warning that they represented “a 
misapplication of resources which should be devoted to true military 
civic action.” 36 

The manual’s attempt to clarify the nature of civic action high¬ 
lighted the fact that the concept had never been well defined or uni¬ 
versally understood. Most soldiers tended to lump all civilian-related 
activities—from population evacuation to raising funds for orphan¬ 
ages—under the rubric of civic action, regardless of how meaningful 


434 






The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


those endeavors might be. On the other hand, the manual’s dismissive 
tone toward community relations activities rubbed many soldiers the 
wrong way and seemed to contradict other guidance that stressed the 
short-term, high impact, psychological nature of civic actions. Indeed, 
Army manuals published after 1967 did not universally accept FM 
41-10’s views on civic action. Thus, one manual maintained that dis¬ 
tributing candy and tobacco were civic actions. Another accepted FM 
41—10’s narrow definition but argued that “civil-military projects which 
are undertaken to improve the image of the military forces and foster 
goodwill with the population may serve to replace or augment military 
civic action projects. Tactical requirements, time, availability of mate¬ 
riel, or other considerations may make these projects more feasible than 
the developmental ones of military civic action.” Such disagreements 
perpetuated confusion and prevented the formulation of a more uni¬ 
form understanding of civic action within the Army as a whole. 37 

Reflections on Nation Building 

By the end of 1967 the Army had essentially fulfilled the major 
goals of the doctrinal revision program set in motion by General 
Johnson in 1964. Broad, vertically organized doctrine for the execu¬ 
tion of the Army’s third principal mission existed in the form 
of FM 100-20, Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and 
Development ; FM 31-23, Stability Operations: US. Army Doctrine ; 
FM 31-73, Adviser Handbook for Stability Operations ; FM 30-31, 
Stability Operations—Intelligence ; and the as-yet unrevised FM 31-22, 
US. Army Counterinsurgency Forces. FM 31-16, Counter guerrilla 
Operations , described brigade-level combined arms counterguerrilla 
warfare, while a host of branch and functional manuals spread the 
gospel of counterinsurgency horizontally across the spectrum of Army 
activity, from infantry and armor to civil affairs. Still, General Johnson 
was dissatisfied, and under his guidance the service initiated yet anoth¬ 
er round of doctrinal examination, an effort that soon revolved around 
a debate over the nature and importance of nation building. 

Practical experience over the past few years had taken some of 
the luster off the more ebullient pronouncements of the early 1960s 
with regard to America’s ability to end third world instability through 
political, social, and economic reform. Building schools and inoculat¬ 
ing children had proved inadequate talismans against guerrilla bullets. 
Economic aid had not sparked Walt Rostow’s anticipated take off 
toward more stable, socially equitable, and politically democratic soci¬ 
eties either. As the war in Vietnam and Alliance for Progress stumbled 


435 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


toward uncertain conclusions, even supporters ol nation building were 
compelled to admit that these endeavors had turned out to be more dif¬ 
ficult than many had initially supposed. As a result, a new, more prag¬ 
matic school of thought had begun to emerge to challenge the “hearts 
and minds” school. 3 " 

One of the leaders of the pragmatic movement was Charles Wolf 
of the RAND Corporation. Wolf argued that there was no evidence 
that socioeconomic improvement programs necessarily had the desired 
effects of winning hearts and minds. Noting that “evil governments 
may quell virtuous rebellions, and virtuous governments may lose to 
evil rebellions,” Wolf urged Americans to abandon some of the righ¬ 
teousness that had come to color U.S. policy during the early 1960s. 
For Wolf and other pragmatists, winning a people’s loyalty was less 
important than controlling a population’s behavior. This conclusion 
stemmed from recent experiences as well as an analysis of Communist 
methods. As another leading pragmatist, Lt. Col. Boyd T. Bashore, 
explained, the Communists drew their strength less from the appeal of 
their ideology than through the power of their organization. In a pair 
of widely noted articles that appeared in the Infancy Journal in 1968, 
Bashore reminded his readers of the extensive efforts the Communists 
made to mobilize and control the populace. Through a careful blend of 
propaganda, intimidation, and administration, successful Communist 
movements created an interlocking web of political, social, and mili¬ 
tary institutions that allowed them to progressively gain control over 
a society, beginning at the grass-roots level and working up. Bashore 
labeled the Communist’s system of institutions parallel hierarchies , a 
term he took from French counterinsurgency literature. For Bashore 
and Wolf, the key to countering Communist revolution lay not so much 
in instituting reforms than in taking practical steps to destroy the paral¬ 
lel hierarchies while bolstering the government’s own ability to control 
the behavior of the population. 34 

Noting that “victory . . . seems most often to have been effectively 
accomplished by an all-out police-military effort, and not by pushing 
freedom like a wet noodle from the top down into the countryside,” 
Bashore argued that “the people of a nation under attack must accept 
discipline and put off or give up many of the rights and privileges that 
we may hold dear in our democracy. This fact of life, as unpalatable 
as it may seem, must be fully understood.” Rather than pinning one’s 
hopes on building democracies and righting social wrongs, govern¬ 
ments would do better, Bashore and Wolf argued, to focus their ener¬ 
gies on less glamorous military, organizational, and administrative 
endeavors. Building roads and distributing land might win friends and 


436 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


influence people, but ultimately police, intelligence, propaganda, and 
population- and resources-control measures would strangle a guerrilla 
movement by denying the guerrillas the “inputs” they needed to sur¬ 
vive—food, shelter, information, and recruits. 40 

Though they looked at civic action and democracy-building with 
a jaundiced eye, the pragmatists did not challenge the central tenets 
of established American doctrine. They acknowledged that genuine 
reform was both useful and ultimately desirable. They also rejected the 
more extreme measures—like torture and terror—employed by some 
French practitioners of guerre revolutionnaire. In fact, the actions they 
recommended—imposing curfews and controlling the distribution of 
food—were already a part of U.S. doctrine. And, as in existing doctrine, 
Bashore and Wolf insisted that such measures be legally construed and 
fairly, if firmly, implemented. They differed from their more idealistic 
counterparts, therefore, less in the means to be used than in the relative 
significance to be accorded to hard-versus-soft measures. Still, this was 
a split that was not readily reconciled. 41 

Nor did the Army resolve it. Previous doctrine had acknowledged 
the importance ot both persuasion and coercion without according 
unambiguous precedence to either, and champions for every conceiv¬ 
able admixture of the two could be found in the officer corps. This 
situation would continue, for rather than choose between them, the 
Army chose to continue to straddle the doctrinal fence. Thus, while 
the service would place increasing emphasis on practical security and 
counterinfrastructure measures, it would also cling to the notion that 
counterinsurgents had to win the loyalty of the people, eschewing 
purely military and security solutions. Indeed, what is perhaps most 
interesting about the Army’s reaction to the trials and tribulations of the 
1960s was that the Army did not seek to abandon the central tenets of 
the hearts-and-minds approach to counterinsurgency but rather sought 
ways to execute that philosophy more effectively. 

General Johnson’s initial concern in this regard focused on the 
interrelated areas of psychological operations and civil affairs, two dis¬ 
ciplines that he believed were central to stability operations. While the 
new manuals issued in 1966 and 1967 had raised the profile of psycho¬ 
logical and civil affairs, many believed the service had yet to achieve 
the type of cultural and institutional change needed to transform it into 
a truly effective low intensity force. 

One obstacle to improving the Army’s political and social capabili¬ 
ties lay in the fact that such activities transcended bureaucratic bound¬ 
aries, with primary responsibility frequently falling to external agen¬ 
cies that were either coequal with or superior to the Army. A case in 


437 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


point was psychological operations. The U.S. Information Agency bore 
primary responsibility here, with the Army designated as a supporting 
agency. After the Dominican intervention had revealed weaknesses in 
the development, coordination, and execution of U.S. psychological 
programs, the government had created an Interagency Working Group 
for Psychological Operations in Critical Areas. The Army was not 
represented on this body, though it supported the group’s efforts to 
bring structure and uniformity to interagency psychological operations. 
Unfortunately, bureaucratic wrangling stymied the group’s efforts, and 
by 1968 the Army ruefully concluded that the group had “made no 
significant progress” in clarifying national policy, doctrine, or organi¬ 
zation with regard to social and psychological programs. Frustrated by 
the inability of higher authorities to clarify national policy and sobered 
by the fact that in Vietnam the Army was already performing tasks that 
nominally belonged to civilian agencies, the service began to look for 
alternatives on its own. 42 

In 1966 a board chartered to review officer education programs 
had recommended that the Army develop a cadre of stability operations 
specialists. At the time General Johnson had declined to take such a 
step, but he revisited the issue after a panel of academics and the deputy 
chief of staff for personnel endorsed the idea. Between the fall of 1967 
and the spring of 1968 the Army Staff would generate a pair of studies 
advocating a more active role in nation building. 

The first study, written by Lt. Col. John H. Johns, a psychological 
warfare officer in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military 
Operations, was titled “Psychological Operations-Role in Establishing 
a Sense of Nationhood,” or “Psyop-Reason” for short. Johns argued that 
the Army had no choice but to create its own corps of social engineers 
and nation-building experts, both because sociopolitical affairs were 
critical to the success of military operations in low intensity conflicts 
and because civilian agencies had frequently proved unequal to the 
task of managing such matters. 43 Johns embraced recent developments 
in nation-building theory that downplayed material factors in favor of 
a more holistic approach to social engineering that emphasized people 
and values over things. The key to nation building, he argued, was to cre¬ 
ate a sense of community—or nationhood—beginning with individuals 
and small, intimate social groups at the grass-roots level and gradually 
expanding to ever larger bodies and institutions. Recent experiences in 
Asia and Latin America lent credence to such an approach, as billions 
of dollars worth of economic and material aid had failed to produce 
viable modern nations. Nowhere was this truer than in Vietnam, where 
U.S. officials increasingly blamed the war’s flagging prospects on the 


438 




The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


South Vietnamese government’s failure to motivate and mobilize its 
own populace. Army manuals produced in 1966 and 1967 had already 
begun to reflect this philosophy, and Johns urged that it be propagated 
on a wider scale. 44 

The “Psyop-Reason” report received a skeptical reception from 
Under Secretary of the Army David E. McGiffert. McGiffert believed 
that the study, like most nation-building literature, was too abstract and 
was based more on theory than historical analysis. Like General Bruce 
Palmer, Jr., he doubted whether a universal doctrine for nation building 
could ever be developed, as each insurgency was the unique product 
of innumerable historical, social, political, economic, environmental, 
and military factors. His doubts were bolstered by the report itself, 
which conceded that “the social sciences as yet have not established 
a full range of principles upon which information and psychological 
practitioners can base their programs.” Finally, McGiffert objected to 
the study’s assertion that the Army should take the lead on this matter. 
While stability operations might be a core Army mission, nation build¬ 
ing was not. Providing security was one thing; dabbling in the internal 
political and social affairs of another state was quite another. McGiffert 
therefore counseled that the Army should not try and carve out a new 
responsibility for itself, a responsibility that most properly belonged to 
the Agency for International Development, U.S. Information Agency, 
the State Department, and other civilian entities involved in overseas 
assistance programs. 43 

McGiffert’s questions did not deter the Army Staff from producing 
a second paper in favor of greater Army activism in nation building. 
Prepared under the auspices of the assistant chief of staff for force 
development (ACSFOR), the study—“Counterguerrilla Operations”— 
essentially reaffirmed the conclusions of the “Psyop-Reason” report. 
The study’s authors, Lt. Cols. William J. Buchanan and Robert A. 
Hyatt, criticized the Army’s approach to the political side of counter¬ 
guerrilla warfare. In their opinion, recent manuals, like FM 100-20 
(1967) and FM 41-10 (1967), were insufficiently attuned to what 
they deemed was the focal point of any revolution—the struggle for 
legitimacy. In a partial rejection of Wolf, they asserted that victory in 
an insurgency would inevitably accrue to whichever party succeeded 
in persuading the citizenry that it had a legitimate right to rule. On 
the other hand, the ACSFOR authors joined with Wolf and Bashore 
in criticizing earlier American nation-building efforts. Noting that the 
political struggle “goes beyond good administration and building a 
viable economy,” Buchanan and Hyatt argued that Rostow had erred 
in viewing the problems of modernization largely from an economic 


439 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


standpoint. “This materialistic view,” they declared, “stems from the 
unfounded belief that the lack of adequate goods and services 'cause’ 
insurgency. With this view, it must follow that provision of the neces¬ 
sary goods and services will solve the problem. This shallow view is 
unsupportable.” They likewise took a dim view of most Army civic 
action activities, which they believed were “the result of a delusion 
concerning motivation.” Since “the effectiveness of providing minor 
benefits as a primary source of motivation is not borne out in either 
scientific behavior theory or in practice,” the authors dismissed civic 
action as a relatively minor propaganda weapon in the broader socio¬ 
political struggle. 4 ' 1 

Rather than tinker around the margins, Buchanan and Hyatt chal¬ 
lenged beleaguered governments to fundamentally recast their societ¬ 
ies. In the words of the study, 

The conduct of a political struggle within a society is revolutionary; that is, 
the culture and values of the society and its members must be rapidly and 
permanently changed to establish social control. Time and the insurgent will 
not permit an evolution of culture and values. . . . What [the government] must 
understand is that the traditional values will be changed by the insurgent any¬ 
how, and these changes will be detrimental to the government. ... It is certain 
that change will take place; it is incumbent on the government to take the 
necessary steps to insure that the change is orderly, even if revolutionary, and 
productive of stability. The stability required is related to the regulated motion 
of a gyroscope, not to the status quo . 41 

Once the necessity of fundamental social change was accepted, a 
government would need a body of highly trained specialists to guide 
it through the perilous waters of social transformation. To help meet 
this requirement, Buchanan and Hyatt supported the formation of a 
uniformed corps of social engineers. They rejected any suggestion of 
impropriety at having U.S. soldiers involved in overseas nation build¬ 
ing, for while nation building might “be incompatible with the concept 
of not interfering in the internal affairs of nations, it is no more incom¬ 
patible than the accepted role of teaching an army how to efficiently 
shoot these same citizens once they are subverted.” 4 * 

If Buchanan and Hyatt disagreed with Wolf over the proper 
focal point of a counterinsurgency program, they accepted many of 
the pragmatists’ methods. Like Bashore, they insisted that the Army 
needed to develop a detailed doctrine for waging political warfare. 
They likewise elevated population security over purely military offen¬ 
sive operations. For the most part, however, they found few faults with 
the military aspects of contemporary doctrine. Indeed, they believed 


440 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


that the organizational and tactical concepts employed by U.S. combat 
units in Vietnam were fundamentally sound. The report specifically 
rejected the idea that the Army could or should attempt to “out-guer- 
rilla the guerrilla, preferring the more traditional approach of blend¬ 
ing industrial might with a greater mastery of individual soldier skills 
to present the guerrilla with a heavily armed, yet savvy, foe. 49 

Since the key to winning an insurgency was to create a more 
cohesive social system supportive of both modernization and the rule 
of law, Buchanan and Hyatt frowned on any act that might unduly 
disrupt social order. They therefore joined existing doctrine in call¬ 
ing for good conduct and condemning actions involving excessive 
destruction of civilian life and property. Yet like the “PROVN” study of 
1966, “Counterguerrilla Operations” insisted on adhering to firepower¬ 
intensive tactics, noting that “since the counterinsurgent must keep his 
casualties to a minimum if he is to retain the capability of fighting a 
protracted war, the destruction of large enemy units depends on heavy 
volumes of supporting fires, not on infantry assaults.” The report did 
not explain how one could minimize civilian casualties while simulta¬ 
neously waging a high-firepower war. 50 

Assistant Chief of Staff for Force Development Lt. Gen. Arthur S. 
Collins, Jr., reacted favorably to “Counterguerrilla Operations.” His only 
qualm involved the apparent contradiction between firepower-heavy tac¬ 
tics and the need to minimize civil disruption. To resolve this conflict, he 
recommended that doctrinal materials make clear that the high-firepower 
tactics endorsed in the study were suitable only for a phase III environ¬ 
ment, and then under rules of engagement similar to those employed in 
Vietnam. He further recommended that the United States refrain from 
giving third world governments sophisticated equipment and heavy 
weapons, stating that “I have come to the conclusion that the very nature 
of our support tends to separate the government . . . from the people.” 
Disillusionment with America’s experience in Vietnam also led him to 
conclude that in future insurgencies the United States should limit itself 
to providing advice and technical support rather than combat forces. To 
this end he recommended that the Army delete the combat forces includ¬ 
ed in the as-yet unimplemented Regional Assistance Command." 

Chief of Staff General Johnson’s reaction to “Counterguerrilla 
Operations” was even more positive. “Excellent ... the most hopeful 
outlook I’ve seen” were Johnson’s words after he perused the report. 
Johnson had never accepted General Palmer’s 1965 conclusion that it 
was impossible to codify a universal doctrine for counterinsurgency. 
By asserting that all revolutions devolved to a political struggle for 
legitimacy in which the competing factions wielded psychological and 


441 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


organizational tools to recast social groups and institutions, the ACSFOR 
paper seemed to be offering a scientifically derived basis for the creation 
of doctrine. Of course the notion that insurgencies were primarily driven 
by political factors had long held currency in U.S. doctrinal and policy 
circles. What “Counterguerrilla Operations” brought to the table was a 
fresh approach to tackling those political issues through the prism of 
contemporary sociological analysis. General Johnson not only approved 
the work, but he ordered it distributed throughout the Army’s doctrinal 
and educational system to stimulate thought on how the service could 
best participate in the “political struggle.” Indeed, so important did the 
Army regard the monograph that Military Review> devoted the first forty 
pages of its August 1968 issue to presenting what would ultimately be a 
two-part, sixty-page distillation of the report. Meanwhile, Johnson used 
Buchanan and Hyatt’s analysis as the basis to launch yet another round of 
studies to improve Army doctrine, an effort he designated “Refining the 
Army’s Role in Stability Operations,” or “REARM-STABILITY.” 52 

The only part of the ACSFOR report that General Johnson declined 
to endorse concerned the recommendation to eliminate combat troops 
from the Regional Assistance Command. Johnson believed that, no 
matter how distasteful direct military interventions might be, “we can¬ 
not avoid violence, much as we dislike it. We must learn how to control 
it, without loss of effect on the enemy.” Still, a CDC study done as part 
of the “REARM-STABILITY” effort endorsed deleting the airborne 
infantry brigade from the Regional Assistance Command while retain¬ 
ing and improving the current Special Action Force organization. All 
of this proved moot, however, as declining resources and a growing 
national aversion for overseas interventionism doomed the RAC con¬ 
cept, and it was never implemented. 53 

Fortified by the conclusions of the Army Staff studies of 
1967-1968, General Johnson finally decided to establish a cadre of 
uniformed social engineers. As one of his last actions as chief of staff, 
Johnson merged the civil affairs and psychological operations career 
programs into a new career program in 1968. He designated the new 
career field the Overseas Security Operations (OSO) program, but 
the name did not stick, and in 1969 it became the Military Assistance 
Officer Program (MAOP). MAOP officers were to be specialists in 
politico-military affairs in general and nation building in particular. 
Army leaders hoped that the new career field would attract the best 
and brightest officers to politico-military work. To develop the new 
class of soldier-statesmen, Johnson directed that the Civil Affairs 
School be moved from Fort Gordon, Georgia, and merged with the 
Special Warfare Center to form a new Center for Overseas Security 


442 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


Operations (later renamed the Institute for Military Assistance) at 
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. From there, MAOP officers would be 
deployed to military assistance advisory groups, Special Action 
Forces, headquarters staffs, and units around the world to dispense 
their knowledge to U.S. and foreign soldiers alike. Johnson empha¬ 
sized the importance of the new field by authorizing G-5 and S-5 
civil-military staff sections lor brigades, regiments, groups, and select 
battalions worldwide, an authorization that heretofore had been lim¬ 
ited to Vietnam. He also recommended that every military assistance 
advisory group in a developing country have at least one officer 
trained in nation building on its staff. Ultimately, the service hoped 
to recruit 6,000 officers into the MAOP career field. 54 

General Johnson’s retirement in July 1968 removed a determined 
advocate for expanding the Army’s sociopolitical functions. His succes¬ 
sor as Army chief ot staff, General William C. Westmoreland, was less 
passionate on this subject. Nevertheless, he too believed that the Army 
needed to improve its civil affairs, psyops, and nation-building capa¬ 
bilities, and he continued both the MAOP and “REARM-STABILITY” 
programs.” 

Between 1968 and 1970 the Army produced a number of doctrinal 
studies in support of “REARM-STABILITY.” One of the first was 
“Nation Building Contributions of the Army (NABUCA),” written by 
ODCSOPS’ Colonel Johns in 1968. Following recent trends, Johns 
argued that the single-most important task of nation building was to 
develop ways and means whereby people could come together to work 
for common goals. To accomplish this task, American social engineers 
would have to replace traditional habits and loyalties with “patterns of 
cooperation” conducive to achieving national unity, social harmony, 
economic growth, and political liberalization—a process which Johns 
referred to as institution building.” 

The “NABUCA” report joined with the “Counterguerrilla 
Operations” study in criticizing the materialistic orientation of past 
nation-building and civic action efforts because as Johns conceded, “it 
does not follow that a farmer assisted with well-building and farm-to- 
market means will necessarily support the provider of these improve¬ 
ments.” With an eye on Vietnam, Johns lamented that “we have failed 
to generate the enthusiasm and dedication to a cause that is necessary 
for effective group behavior. Large elements of the population have 
remained alienated from the mainstream of society.’” 7 

Colonel Johns thought the Army could do better. He suggested that 
the Army expand civic action programs and reorientate them toward 
institution building. Similarly, American training programs should. 


443 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


“with the utmost discretion,” imbue foreign military personnel with 
the ideology of using military resources for constructive societal tasks. 
He also believed that the military needed to put forth a positive image, 
though he asserted this truism in unusually strong terms, stating that 
“purity of motive and honest intentions; good passive troop behavior 
and good relations with the local power elite are not sufficient. To avoid 
the image of being an insensitive force, the military must take strong, 
positive measures to understand the world of the alienated, and demon¬ 
strate empathy and compassion for their legitimate plight.’”" 

Although Johns strongly supported using advisers and MAOP 
personnel as social engineers, he shied away from suggesting that 
U.S. operational forces be committed to nation-building tasks. He 
also recognized that significant political, ideological, and bureaucratic 
obstacles existed to the military’s playing a more active nation-building 
role. Thus, while he dismissed most objections to military participation 
in nation building, Colonel Johns conceded that “there is a limit to the 
improvements that can be accomplished by unilateral Army action. The 
suspicion of Army involvement in ‘political matters’ will continue to 
inhibit maximum Army contribution to nation building programs until 
the semantic confusion is cleared. There is legitimate concern with 
respect to Army politico-military activities, but much of the problem 
is semantic.” He therefore recommended that the Army continue to 
develop its nation-building capabilities “while avoiding undue criticism 
for overstepping traditional boundaries.” Secretary of the Army Stanley 
R. Resor and Army Chief of Staff General Westmoreland agreed. They 
approved the “NABUCA’’ report for use in developing doctrine and 
school curriculums but prohibited distribution of the paper outside the 
Army lest word of the work trigger criticism from civilian agencies that 
the Army was encroaching on their bureaucratic turf. 59 

The net effect of the 1966-1968 study effort thus had been to 
create a movement within the Army for strengthening the military’s 
nation-building capabilities. As one report declared, “the day of the 
Army officer who is professional only in a narrow range of military 
duties is gone. One of the most important tasks confronting the Army 
during the period in question will be the development of a new higher 
level of professional military competence to deal with stability-type 
operations. The attainment of a high educational level among relatively 
junior officers in the politico-socio-economic and scientific fields will 
be a necessity in dealing with other cultures.” 60 

Yet the consensus was far from universal, and there remained 
important obstacles to expanding the Army’s nation-building capabili¬ 
ties. Not the least of these was the difficulty of codifying the musings 


444 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


ot social and political theorists into meaningful guidance for soldiers 
because as a council ol academics had cautioned in 1967, “the psycho¬ 
logical and political dimensions ol war cannot by their very nature be 
rigidly codified. It will, therefore, be impossible to develop doctrine in 
this area that will be as precise or as rigorous as doctrine usually within 
the Army.” 61 


Doctrinal Developments, 1968-1972 

While the theoreticians refined their nation-building concepts, the 
Army pressed ahead to redress the outstanding gaps identified in the 
“Counterguerrilla Warfare Doctrine” study. The most notable works 
to appear in 1968 were three “test” manuals rushed into print to pro¬ 
vide interim guidance until more definitive doctrine could be devel¬ 
oped—FM 31-36 (Test), Night Operations ; FM 31-75 (Test), Riverine 
Operations', and FM 31-55 (Test), Border Security/Anti-Infiltration 
Operations. The first two manuals addressed specific challenges in 
Vietnam, while the third codified recent experience in Korea. 62 Combat 
Developments Command also continued to disseminate updated stabil¬ 
ity operations doctrine throughout branch- and functional-level manu¬ 
als. Examples of this effort included the addition of a new stability 
operations chapter in FM 31-18, Long-Range Patrol Company , that 
described Vietnam LRRP procedures, and Change 1 to FM 7—11, Rifle 
Company ; InfantryAirborne, and Mechanized , which nearly tripled 
that manual’s coverage of counterguerrilla warfare. By far the most 
important manual to be revised in 1968, however, was the Army’s basic 
combat manual, FM 100-5, Operations of Army Forces in the Field. 

The 1968 edition of FM 100-5 incorporated all the new language 
and terminology that had come into vogue since the manual’s last pub¬ 
lication in 1962. It identified stability operations as a normal Army 
function, indicating that early detection and immediate remedial action 
offered the best chance to eliminate a budding insurgency. Although 
the manual’s chapter on cold war operations stood virtually unchanged, 
the counterguerrilla chapter was completely rewritten to focus on guer¬ 
rilla warfare in an insurgency environment as opposed to partisan war¬ 
fare during limited or general wars. The chapter was also shorter and 
less detailed than its predecessor due to the publication of many other 
counterinsurgency-related manuals since 1962. 

Perhaps reflecting America’s Vietnam experience, FM 100-5 
(1968) cautioned that insurgents were “particularly dangerous” when 
they received outside aid. The manual also added a short section on 
riverine operations but included scant else from the Vietnam conflict. 


445 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Indeed, what is most remarkable about the text is how little it had 
changed after six years of doctrinal ferment and three years of warfare 
in Vietnam. With the exception of a phrase here or there, the basic 
concepts related in this most important manual did not change. Thus 
FM 100-5 (1968) continued to argue that unresolved grievances caused 
insurgencies, and that the only way to permanently quell unrest was to 
redress socioeconomic and political inequities. To achieve this end and 
“to maintain popular support, accelerated internal development is fre¬ 
quently necessary to satisfy popular needs and demands.” On the other 
hand, FM 100-5 (1968) also adhered to established doctrine in main¬ 
taining that “the proper balance of effort between combat and internal 
development is a command decision based on how best to defeat the 
insurgency in the specific area of operations,” and consequently it 
refused to prioritize these efforts. 63 

In 1969 Combat Developments Command continued its efforts to 
ensure that branch and functional manuals kept pace with current con¬ 
cepts and terminology. Usually all this amounted to were minor chang¬ 
es that did little more than reiterate points made in earlier, higher-level 
manuals. Some manuals, like the 1969 editions of FM 21-50, Ranger 
Operations , and FM 31-5, Jungle Operations , emerged substantially 
unchanged from prewar texts. Others, like FM 41-10, Civil Affairs 
(1969), mirrored current trends by adopting an increasingly sociologi¬ 
cal flavor and by paying somewhat greater homage to the importance 
of counterinfrastructure activities. Still others actually curtailed their 
coverage of stability operations in the name of eliminating redundancy. 
Thus FM 31—21, Special Forces Operations — US. Army Doctrine 
(1969), reduced its coverage of stability operations by 80 percent 
compared to its 1965 predecessor. The new edition, however, did add a 
small section on countering urban guerrillas in response to the growth 
of urban terror movements. According to the manual, the primary mis¬ 
sion of Special Forces personnel in urban areas “will be to assist the 
local government in neutralizing the insurgent political leadership and 
infrastructure. Good intelligence is the key to identifying and locat¬ 
ing hard core insurgent leaders. Apprehending or destroying the hard 
core leadership is the first step in the fragmentation of the insurgent 
infrastructure, elimination of centralized direction and control, creat¬ 
ing disunity, and the eventual destruction of the insurgent underground 
apparatus.” 64 

While intelligence and counterinfrastructure measures held the key 
to defeating urban terrorists, experience with rural warfare in Vietnam 
led the Army to modify its guerrilla-fighting doctrine in a some¬ 
what different way. In 1969 the Army issued a change to FM 31-16, 


446 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


Counterguerrilla Operations , that incorporated some of the lessons 
of Vietnam. The new text highlighted the importance of both recon¬ 
naissance and firepower in counterguerrilla warfare. It specifically 
endorsed the DePuy approach of finding the enemy with minimum 
force and destroying him by fire. This was particularly true when the 
enemy was fortified, in which case the manual advised commanders 
to pull back and allow “massed firepower” to overwhelm the enemy. 
Nearly four years after commanders in Vietnam had begun to employ 
high-firepower tactics, the Army’s primary operational manual for 
counterguerrilla warfare finally came around to endorsing such tech¬ 
niques. 65 

This modest and incremental approach continued through 1970 
and 1971. In 1970 the Army produced two new manuals concerning 
aspects of defense against guerrillas—FM 31-85, Rear Area Protection 
Operations , which discussed the organization of rear areas during 
a conventional conflict, and FM 31-81 (Test), Base Defense , which 
related many of the methods used in Vietnam to secure installations 
against attack. Other Vietnam-induced revisions included Change 1 
to FM 21-75, Combat Training of Individual Soldiers (1970), which 
added a chapter on combat intelligence and tracking in a guerrilla 
environment. The Army also released Change 2 to FM 31-16, which 
discussed urban counterguerrilla operations. Like earlier manuals, the 
new urban warfare section counseled discretion in the use of force. 
Reflecting recent experience during the 1968 Tet offensive, the insert 
cautioned that guerrillas might choose to fight in a built-up area, “even 
at the risk of annihilation ... if they are confident of winning a local or 
worldwide psychological victory.” 66 

Vietnam lessons also provided the rationale for other revisions 
as well. FM 7-10, The Rifle Company ; Platoons, and Squads (1970), 
briefly described Vietnam techniques, while a new edition of FM 
6-20-2, Field Artillery Techniques (1970), reinforced the trend toward 
firepower, expanding its coverage of the use of artillery in counter¬ 
guerrilla warfare nearly sixfold over the 1962 edition. The increase 
reflected the fundamental shift from maneuver to fire that had occurred 
in American counterguerrilla tactics during the Vietnam War. The 
manual reviewed artillery concepts and techniques as they had evolved 
in Southeast Asia and heartily endorsed using artillery to the maximum 
extent possible, though it acknowledged the importance of minimizing 
the adverse consequences of such fires on civilians. Finally, in 1970 
the Army produced two manuals devoted exclusively to counterinsur¬ 
gency. FM 30-31, Stability Operations—Intelligence, emphasized the 
importance of attacking the guerrilla’s “parallel” system of social and 


447 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


political control, although it contained few new methods of doing so, 
while an entirely new manual, FM 19-50, Military Police in Stability 
Operations , addressed the many roles that police organizations played 
in low intensity conflicts. 67 

Doctrinal Consolidation, 1972-1974 

In 1972, after several years of updating derivative branch and func¬ 
tional doctrine, the service returned to the field of fundamental doctrine, 
producing what would be the third generation of some of its core coun¬ 
terinsurgency manuals. In the interest of streamlining, the Army stripped 
most of the detail concerning Army counterinsurgency doctrine out of FM 
100-20, Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and Development , 
and placed it into FM 31-23, Stability Operations: US. Army Doctrine. 
It likewise folded FM 31-22, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Forces , 
into FM 31-23, thereby eliminating FM 31-22 entirely and producing 
two new manuals where there once had been three. FM 100-20 (1972) 
emerged from this process a hollow shell. Reduced to fifteen pages, the 
manual provided a cursory overview of the U.S. government’s approach 
to third world development and instability. It reviewed the causes of 
instability, described the basic philosophy behind America’s response, 
and outlined the roles and missions of the various government agencies 
involved in overseas internal defense and development work. Little of 
this was new, as the basic parameters of national policy had remained 
remarkably constant over the past decade. 

Continuity was likewise the theme of the 1972 edition of FM 
31-23, Stability Operations: U.S. Army Doctrine. The manual perpetu¬ 
ated earlier analyses of both the insurgency challenge and its solution. 
It emphasized the importance of police countermeasures, especially 
during the earliest stages of unrest, and included a section on Latin 
American-style urban insurgency. Its recounting of the Army’s three 
tiers of counterinsurgency forces—the SAF, backup brigades, and the 
Army as a whole—was virtually unchanged from 1963. FM 31-23 
(1972) also adhered to the trend toward conciseness, as it was slimmer 
than its predecessor despite the fact that it consolidated two manuals 
and a portion of a third. On the other hand, FM 31-23 (1972) stepped 
away from the Vietnam experience by purging elements of earlier 
doctrine that had absorbed some of the flavor of that conflict. Thus the 
manual dropped much of the 1967 edition’s discussion of Communist 
organization which had been based on the Viet Cong and replaced 
Vietnam-specific terms like district and province with more generic 
words, such as local and state. 


448 




The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


II the 1972 manuals consisted largely of condensed recitations 
ol earlier doctrine, they dutifully incorporated at least one important 
change in American policy that had transpired since the publication of 
their predecessor manuals in 1967. In July 1969 the new President of 
the United States, Richard M. Nixon, had declared that the United States 
would exercise greater discretion than it had in the past in deciding when, 
where, and how America would intervene to combat subversion in the 
third world. Vietnam had cured the United States of its willingness to 
"‘pay any price” and “bear any burden ... to assure the survival of liberty” 
in remote corners of the globe A The crusade was over, to be replaced by 
a more cautious strategy of selective engagement. Henceforth, decisions 
on foreign assistance would be governed by a dispassionate analysis of 
America’s strategic interests rather than Cold War rhetoric. Central to 
those considerations would be a determination as to the willingness and 
ability of the afflicted government to fight, for Vietnam had demonstrat¬ 
ed the folly of trying to save a nation that lacked the will to save itself. As 
the president explained in a report to Congress in February 1970, 

We cannot expect U.S. military forces to cope with the entire spectrum of 
threats facing allies or potential allies throughout the world. This is particu¬ 
larly true of subversion and guerrilla warfare, or ‘wars of national liberation.’ 
Experience has shown that the best means of dealing with insurgencies is to 
preempt them through economic development and social reform and control 
them with police, paramilitary and military action by the threatened govern¬ 
ment. We may be able to supplement local efforts with economic and military 
assistance. However, a direct combat role for U.S. general purpose forces 
arises primarily when insurgency has shaded into external aggression or when 
there is an overt conventional attack. In such cases we shall weigh our inter¬ 
ests and our commitments, and we shall consider the efforts of our allies, in 
determining our response/"' 

At first glance this seemed nothing new, for national policy and 
Army doctrine had always maintained that nations bore primary respon¬ 
sibility for their own development and defense. During the heyday of 
American intervention in Vietnam, however, this principle had tended 
to be overlooked. Indeed, the 1967 version of FM 100—20 had omitted 
the 1964 edition’s assertion that the threatened country bore primary 
responsibility for its own defense. Now the pendulum was swinging 
back to a more cautious approach. 70 

In 1970 Army Chief of Staff General Westmoreland responded 
to the “Nixon Doctrine” by directing that the Army reexamine its 
role in stability operations. In response, ODCSOPS produced a study 
titled “The United States Army’s Role in Nation Building.” The report 


449 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


endorsed the course the Army had been following over the past few 
years. It reaffirmed the importance of nation building, both as a tool of 
U.S. government policy and as an Army mission. The paper supported 
the Military Assistance Officer Program as a means of developing 
civil-military and stability operations expertise and advocated the con¬ 
tinued use of appropriately orientated MAAGs and training teams to 
dispense U.S. advice and assistance wherever it was needed. 7 ' 

Yet while the study strongly supported the retention of stability 
operations capabilities within the Army, it admitted that serious impedi¬ 
ments existed to doing so. Perhaps the most fundamental problem was 
that “our knowledge” of nation building “is still relatively meager.” Ten 
years of effort by thousands of academics and practitioners had yet to 
decipher the nation-building enigma. While the hard school of experi¬ 
ence had given Americans a greater appreciation for nation building’s 
many challenges, the fact remained that the task of building social, 
political, and economic institutions in alien and unstable environments 
was more alchemy than science, a magical art that the sorcerers of aca¬ 
demia—let alone their uniformed apprentices—only partially under¬ 
stood and imperfectly controlled. Thus, while ODCSOPS believed the 
Army should continue to study the modernization phenomenon, “it 
must also recognize its limitations in solving or even understanding the 
variety of problems facing the LDCs [less developed countries] in their 
attempts to modernize and must be constantly on the alert to prevent 
overextending itself in this effort.” 72 

If the mysteries of nation building gave Army staffers pause, so 
too did the more mundane frustrations of governmental organization. 
A decade of experience with bureaucratic infighting and slipshod coor¬ 
dination notwithstanding, the U.S. government still lacked an effective 
means of integrating the activities of the many agencies involved in 
the formulation and execution of internal defense and development 
policy. Until such a mechanism was created, ODCSOPS believed that 
much of the Army’s activities would go for naught. On the other hand, 
ODCSOPS also recognized that the service could not blame all of its 
problems on others, for “there appears to be some inconsistency between 
stated Army policy and reality. While considerable emphasis has been 
placed on stability operations, there are indications, particularly in the 
areas of training and assignments, that these type of operations are not 
treated on an equal par with the Army’s other missions.” After years of 
command emphasis, much of the rank and file still felt uncomfortable 
with certain aspects of stability operations—most notably its political 
components. Sociopolitical duty not only violated many soldiers’ view 
of the proper separation of political and military life, but violated their 


450 




The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


sense ol professionalism as well, since no soldier could possibly be an 
expert in the many diverse roles in which pacification duty cast him. 
Many soldiers were also convinced, rightly or otherwise, that advisory 
duty was detrimental to their careers. Sincere and repeated efforts by 
the Army to dispel this belief, as well as to improve the quality of the 
advisory effort through career incentives and increased education, 
never succeeded in overcoming the officer corps’ innate aversion for 
this key component of American policy. 73 

By itself, the lack of enthusiasm exhibited by many soldiers toward 
stability operations was not an insurmountable obstacle, but it became 
poisonous when combined with the general malaise that settled over 
the nation at the close of the Vietnam War. Disillusionment over the 
Vietnam imbroglio created deep antipathy toward both nation building 
and overseas interventionism not only within the military, but among 
politicians, academics, and the general public as well. Antiwar senti¬ 
ments blended with traditional sensitivity over civil-military relation¬ 
ships to create an added backlash against the Army’s participation in 
nation building. The fact that the 1960s and early 1970s had witnessed 
a resurgence of military dictatorships in Latin America at a time when 
the United States was pushing an agenda of military-social activism 
simply amplified doubts in many people’s minds as to the wisdom of 
military involvement in nation building. Moreover, America was begin¬ 
ning to change its view of the world, replacing the Cold War tendency 
to regard everything in bipolar terms with a new view that postulated a 
multipolar world, in which every insurgent was not a Communist and 
every insurgency ought not trigger an intervention. 

The “growing lack of political consensus within the United States” 
over nation-building and counterrevolutionary activities, when coupled 
with the Nixon Doctrine and the prospect of rapidly shrinking defense 
budgets due to postwar downsizing, all led the Army Staff to conclude 
that the service could neither justify nor afford to maintain a significant 
stability operations capability, notwithstanding the fact that the Army 
believed that stability operations would continue to represent its most 
likely form of activity for the foreseeable future. Consequently, while 
the Army Staff insisted the Army retain a nation-building capacity 
through such entities as the MAOP program and the Special Action 
Forces, it rejected the suggestion that the Army as a whole be structured 
for stability operations. Instead, ODCSOPS preferred that the Army 
“concentrate its energies on those activities associated with preparation 
for land combat.” 74 

General Westmoreland approved the ODCSOPS report as Army 
policy in late 1970 and instructed Combat Developments Command 


451 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


to incorporate its conclusions into doctrine. Together with the Nixon 
Doctrine, it charted a new direction for the Army. The tide that had 
borne counterinsurgency upon the Army ten years earlier had begun to 
ebb. While the service was not willing to disown the internal defense 
and development mission, henceforth stability operations and nation 
building would absorb a progressively smaller portion of the service’s 
attention and resources. Gone were the days when enthusiasm for the 
new frontiers of counterinsurgency and nation building had led the 
Army to advocate an ever greater role for itself in these most difficult 
endeavors. Having nearly extricated itself from the Vietnamese quag¬ 
mire, there was now little enthusiasm for jumping into similar situa¬ 
tions anytime soon. Indeed, if the Army had its way, there would never 
be any quagmires ever again, for while everyone acknowledged that 
building a nation was a task of years, if not decades, the ODCSOPS 
report insisted that “in the event that U.S. forces are called upon for 
nation building activities, they should then be assigned on the basis 
of a specific mission in a specific time frame in a specific place, 
and then be withdrawn.” This was a heartfelt, if somewhat wistful, 
declaration." 

The 1972 manuals dutifully adopted the new policies. Citing the 
Nixon Doctrine, FM 100-20 (1972) asserted that “the U.S. military role 
in stability operations must be primarily advisory.... Viable and lasting 
institutions can be generated only by the host country populace. Neither 
the U.S. military nor U.S. civilian personnel can create enduring pat¬ 
terns of cooperation among the host country populace.” Thus while the 
basic content of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine remained relatively 
unchanged, a new direction had begun to assert itself/ 6 

All of the trends of the late 1960s and early 1970s coalesced in 
the last major counterinsurgency manual of the Vietnam War, FM 
100-20, Internal Defense and Development, US. Army Doctrine , in 
1974. Published during the twilight period between the withdrawal of 
U.S. military forces in 1973 and North Vietnam’s conquest of the South 
in 1975, FM 100-20 (1974) represented the Army’s final word of the 
counterinsurgency era. 

The 1974 edition of FM 100-20 superseded not only FM 100-20 
(1972), but FM 31—23 (1972) as well. As such, it represented the 
culmination of the movement to gradually consolidate the four high- 
level counterinsurgency manuals that had existed in the mid-1960s 
(FM 100-20, FM 31-15, FM 31-22, and FM 31-23) into a single, 
authoritative text. After 1974, FM 100-20 became the sole source for 
overarching U.S. national and U.S. Army doctrine pertaining to inter¬ 
nal defense and development. Below FM 100-20 (1974), FM 31-16, 


452 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


Counterguerrilla Operations (1967 and the changes of 1969 and 1970) 
provided doctrine for the conduct of combined arms operations at the 
brigade level and below, while a bevy of branch and functional manuals 
(listed in an appendix to FM 100-20 [1974]) provided details as to the 
functioning of each Army branch and service in an internal defense and 
development environment. 

FM 100-20 (1974) set a different tone from earlier manuals in its 
very first sentence, which stated that “this manual provides U.S. Army 
concepts and doctrine concerning the conduct of internal defense and 
development (IDAD) by host country security forces to prevent and 
defeat insurgency, and U.S. Army IDAD advice and assistance to host 
country security forces.” Although the manual’s second paragraph con¬ 
ceded that U.S. commanders would follow the same doctrine should 
U.S. units be deployed to IDAD situations, the manual’s initial wording 
sent a clear signal that advice and assistance, not direct action, would 
be the Army’s primary role in IDAD. 77 

Having confirmed the Army’s narrowing role in counterinsurgency, 
FM 100-20 (1974) stressed the true functions—and limitations—of 
doctrine. As the manual explained, doctrine 

provides fundamental principles that are designed to guide the actions of 
military forces in the conduct of IDAD operations. In applying the principles, 
one must be aware that the situation in each developing country faced with an 
insurgent threat is unique to that country. In addition, the situation may vary 
considerably in different areas of the same country. The IDAD principles, poli¬ 
cies, and programs that are applied successfully in one nation (or in one area of 
a country) may not be applicable in exactly the same manner in another nation 
(or another area of the same country). Therefore, the principles in this manual 
only provide a general guide to the conduct of IDAD, and judgment must be 
used to adapt them to each situation. 7S 

This was good advice. While hardly new in concept, it represented 
a break with those who had asserted that one could fashion a truly 
definitive and universally applicable doctrine for building nations and 
suppressing insurgencies. 

FM 100-20 (1974) departed from past doctrinal pronouncements in 
a number of other ways as well. With little fanfare, the manual deleted 
the term stability operations from the Army lexicon, the latest casualty 
in the seemingly endless war over counterinsurgency-related words. By 
eliminating the term stability operations , the Army finally put an end 
to General Johnson’s ill-conceived foray into lexicography. Henceforth, 
the Army had only one official term for counterinsurgency— internal 
defense and development —and one upper-level manual to describe it, 


453 






Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


a situation much improved over the past, when a variety of terms and 
manuals had vied with each other for doctrinal prominence. Yet the 
demise of the phrase stability operations represented more than just a 
victory for linguistic and doctrinal clarity, for when the Army jettisoned 
the term the service also discarded all the connotations Johnson had 
associated with it. Gone were the assertions that had appeared in the 
1967 edition of FM 100-20 that “military activities to promote stabil¬ 
ity and progress in the modernization process of developing nations 
have become the U.S. Army’s third principal mission. . . . The Army’s 
readiness for such activities commands a full share of its resources 
and professional military thought and equal priority with readiness 
for limited and general war missions.” The omission clearly signaled 
counterinsurgency’s declining fortunes in the post-Vietnam Army. 79 

FM 100-20 (1974) also reversed the trend toward smaller volumes, 
and its expanded size allowed it to provide fairly comprehensive cov¬ 
erage of U.S. IDAD policy. The manual adequately explained all of 
the philosophical, doctrinal, and organizational points that had been 
covered by its predecessor manuals. It discussed the perils of modern¬ 
ization and the causes of internal conflict, the nature of guerrilla war¬ 
fare and its Maoist phases, U.S. government organization and policy 
for foreign assistance, U.S. national strategy for combating overseas 
insurgencies, and the U.S. Army’s own role in IDAD, from providing 
advisory personnel to the deployment of combat troops. It addressed 
each of these subjects clearly and concisely. Reflecting the doctrinal 
studies of the late 1960s, FM 100-20 (1974) embraced a view of the 
modernization process that blended economic factors with the need 
to replace outmoded values and build new institutions supportive of 
political and social comity. According to the manual, “the fundamen¬ 
tal thrust of IDAD doctrine is toward preventing insurgencies from 
escalating to where they present a significant threat and require an 
inordinate amount of resources to combat,” an old lesson driven home 
by America’s unhappy experience in Vietnam. The manual thus pressed 
for the early identification of problems that could potentially spark an 
insurgency, and early counteraction, primarily through intelligence, 
police, and socioeconomic reform actions. 1 " 0 

Should an insurgency develop despite the application of these pro¬ 
phylactics, FM 100-20 (1974) adhered to the same basic programs that 
had characterized the Army’s approach to counterinsurgency over the 
previous quarter of a century. It called for the establishment of a care¬ 
fully crafted and tightly integrated IDAD plan that would coordinate 
the activities of U.S. and foreign civil and military agencies to mobilize 
the populace, develop indigenous sociopolitical systems, and neutral- 


454 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


ize the insurgent movement. In keeping with past Army philosophy, 
the manual refused to clearly prioritize these efforts. It maintained that 
political issues were central and rejected a purely military solution on 
the one hand, while simultaneously admitting that “the primary objec¬ 
tive under this strategy will be the attainment of internal security” first, 
since mobilizing the population and achieving meaningful develop¬ 
ment without first protecting people from guerrilla intimidation and 
violence was impossible. Similarly, while FM 100-20 (1974) never 
wavered from the cardinal principle that development was the ultimate 
antidote to internal instability, it conceded that “economic, political, 
and social changes are inherently dynamic and may promote unrest,” a 
byproduct that was antithetical, at least in the short run, to government 
objectives. Thus, while the manual did not differ philosophically from 
previous doctrinal works, it was less strident than some of the 1968 
studies in endorsing revolutionary change. 81 

In juxtaposing conflicting objectives, the manual accurately portrayed 
both existing doctrine and recent U.S. experience. The absence of defini¬ 
tive guidance undoubtedly proved disappointing to those who sought pat 
solutions and simple “how-to-do-it” instructions. But by painting coun¬ 
terinsurgency issues in shades of gray rather than black and white, the 
manual was being true to reality, unpleasant as it may have been. 

Education 

Just as the Army continuously revised and updated its doctrinal 
publications during the Vietnam years, so too did it seek new ways 
to bring those publications to life and inculcate their principles into 
the minds of its officers and men. In 1966 the Army established a 
special board under Lt. Gen. Ralph E. Haines, Jr., to evaluate the 
state of the officer education system. The board concluded that coun¬ 
terinsurgency should remain a mandatory element of officer school¬ 
ing, recommending both an increase in the amount of time devoted 
to the subject, as well as a partial revision of the curriculum. In the 
board’s opinion, Army schools devoted too much time reviewing the 
theoretical aspects of counterinsurgency and too little time to appli- 
catory exercises designed to teach and test branch-level techniques. 
The panel particularly criticized the way intelligence, civil affairs, 
and propaganda matters were handled in existing instruction. Finally, 
it stated that the Army needed to improve the quality of instructors 
assigned to teach counterinsurgency and recommended that the ser¬ 
vice create a corps of specialists attuned to the cold war’s unique 
political and psychological challenges—the genesis of MAOP. 82 


455 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Although the Haines Board found that the Army needed to do more, 
it acknowledged that the service had made significant progress since 
the inception of the national counterinsurgency drive in 1961. In fact, 
so confident was the board in the Army’s progress that it recommended 
that the Army abolish two courses instituted during the early days of the 
counterinsurgency movement to bring the officer corps up to speed on 
the new art—the five-day senior officer orientation course in counter¬ 
insurgency and special warfare, and the eight-week counterinsurgency 
operations course. In the board’s opinion these courses—long staples of 
the Special Warfare School curriculum—had served their purpose. The 
Special Warfare School objected to the proposal but to no avail, and in 
1967 the Army abolished both courses. s ’ 

The termination of the counterinsurgency course signaled the 
achievement of at least part of the Army’s objectives, yet as the bulk 
of the report had indicated, the service still had a way to go to achieve 
optimum understanding of the counterinsurgency phenomenon. For 
the most part, the Army responded positively to the board’s findings. 
In 1966 Continental Army Command made psychological operations 
a required subject for all officer candidate, basic, and career courses, 
while the Command and General Staff College increased its coverage 
of psychological matters as well. The new course material empha¬ 
sized the importance of psychological issues in stability operations 
and enjoined officers to evaluate every action with an eye toward 
its possible psychological and political effects. The following year, 
General Johnson issued a special circular that stressed the importance 
of sociopolitical matters in low intensity conflicts. Under the new 
guidance, Johnson directed that all military personnel be familiar 
with civil affairs principles “to insure a proper understanding of the 
attitudes and cultures of civilian populations, their forms of govern¬ 
ment, economies and institutions under all conditions of warfare, 
with emphasis on stability operations.” Such training was also to 
include familiarity with the “rules and conventions governing war, 
with emphasis on the enforcement of law, preservation of order, and 
the prevention of wanton destruction of civilian property.” Johnson 
directed that junior officers and noncommissioned officers receive 
additional training in the organization, function, and relationship of 
civil affairs elements with other Army activities, while field grade 
officers were to study comparative systems of government and civil 
affairs planning. In addition, civil affairs subjects were to be included 
as much as possible in Army training programs, exercises, and tests. 
All of these initiatives reinforced concurrent efforts to elevate social, 
political, and psychological matters in Army doctrine. 84 


456 





The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 



Members of the Reserve Officers ’ Training Corps undergo 
counterinsurgency training in 1971. 


The Army school system followed General Johnson’s and the 
Haines Board’s lead. Most schools increased the amount of time 
devoted to counterinsurgency in general, and the Vietnam War in par¬ 
ticular. The schools went to great lengths to absorb tactical, technical, 
and doctrinal lessons from Vietnam and to relate them to their students. 
As both theory and practice evolved during the late 1960s, so too did 
classroom instruction. Still, continuity rather than change was the cen¬ 
tral characteristic of this period, since the basic thrust of U.S. doctrine 
changed relatively little during the war. 

As during the prewar years, the Army insisted that every soldier 
receive some exposure to counterinsurgency. For officers, this expo¬ 
sure began either in ROTC or as cadets at the U.S. Military Academy. 
Although the Military Academy had reduced the number of required 
classroom hours in counterinsurgency by 1966, the school’s counter¬ 
insurgency curriculum remained relatively stable thereafter. During 
the war all cadets received 30 lessons and 46 hours of field training 
in counterinsurgency, plus 73 lessons of related instruction. Much 
of this course work appeared in Military Science 401, a required, 
senior-level class in which cadets read Mao and examined the les¬ 
sons of the Indochinese, Malayan, Philippine, and Vietnam wars. 
The academy likewise offered another 104 direct and 160 related les¬ 
sons in counterinsurgency electives, most notably in such courses as 
“National Security Problems,” “Problems of Developing Nations,” and 
“Revolutionary Warfare.” Annual enrollment in the last named course, 


457 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


which reviewed the evolution of guerrilla warfare from ancient times 
to the present, steadily increased from 55 in 1966 to 257 in 1970. 
The academy supplemented this classroom time by hosting over forty 
guest speakers on counterinsurgency subjects between 1964 and 1974, 
including Averell Harriman, Edward Lansdale, Richard Clutterback, 
and John Paul Vann A 

For the most part the West Point curriculum focused on the basic 
principles of counterinsurgency and nation building rather than the 
applicatory details, though over time Military Science 401 increasingly 
described U.S. and Viet Cong tactics. While the academy acknowl¬ 
edged irregular warfare’s special challenges, it strongly rejected the 
notion that guerrilla warfare was exempt from the basic principles that 
governed all forms of combat. As one academy lecture explained, “there 
are some officers who are convinced that the counter-guerrilla war is 
so different from the conventional war that they might as well forget 
all the principles and fundamentals that they have learned, and burn 
their books. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The fundamentals 
of combat operations and the related fundamentals of the offense and 
defense are as valid today as they were twenty-five years ago.” 86 

Although West Point instructors did not hesitate to criticize aspects 
of U.S. operations in Vietnam, the academy maintained that Army doc¬ 
trine was sound and adequate. At no time did the academy ever teach 
that large search-and-destroy operations were the only, or even the most 
important, type of operational method. Rather, the school presented 
the full range of tactical and operational options, noting the utility of 
different methods for different conditions. On the other hand. West 
Point drummed home the moderating principles that were a hallmark 
of U.S. counterinsurgency philosophy. Noting that “‘winning the hearts 
and minds,’ may be a shopworn phrase, but it accurately describes the 
political and sociological aspects of stability operations,” the school 
impressed upon cadets that counterinsurgency entailed “not only the 
destruction of the insurgent’s infrastructure and military forces but 
more importantly the elimination of the grievances of the populace. 
This will ultimately bring about the conditions which will allow the 
nation and its people to progress; to develop their nation along peace¬ 
ful lines; and to raise the standard of living without the violence and 
upheaval attending insurgency.” Similarly, while the academy admitted 
that counterinsurgents needed to regulate the behavior of the popula¬ 
tion, it embraced the view that such “measures must be limited to those 
which are absolutely essential and once established must be enforced 
justly, firmly and with equal vigor on all segments of the population. 
They must conform to legal codes and should be removed as soon as 


458 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


they have served their intended 
purpose, for to do otherwise would 
add to the grievances which could 
be capitalized upon by the insur¬ 
gents.” Thus political and social 
considerations lay at the heart of 
the academy’s teachings, existing 
in uneasy symbiosis with military 
necessity as the primary drivers of 
counterguerrilla policy/ 7 

Other Army schools mim¬ 
icked the principles inculcated at 
West Point, though the amount 
and content of instruction varied 
to match each institution’s par¬ 
ticular mission. All branch-level 
schools taught a common course 
on insurgency that related the basic 
tenets of U.S. counterinsurgency 
philosophy, but beyond this, coverage continued to vary widely. The 
Judge Advocate General’s School devoted just 1 percent of its classroom 
time to counterinsurgency, while the School of the Americas—a key ele¬ 
ment of the nation’s Latin America policy—provided extensive coverage 
of insurgency issues. As one might expect, about 80 percent of the civil 
affairs officer course at the Civil Affairs School was IDAD related, to 
include the political and social attributes of developing nations, compara¬ 
tive cultural and religious studies, and the workings of the country team. 
Meanwhile, the Field Artillery School increased the length of its officer 
basic course from nine to twelve weeks to expand coverage of artillery 
techniques as they were being practiced in Vietnam. The school also 
built two Vietnam-style firebases for instructional purposes and initiated 
a special field artillery officer orientation course of four to five weeks 
devoted exclusively to Vietnam tactics and techniques. 88 

As had been the case prior to 1965, the Infantry School led the 
Army’s branch and functional schools in integrating counterinsur¬ 
gency throughout its curriculum. By 1966 the school was devoting 
no less than 35 percent of its basic and career courses to counter¬ 
insurgency subjects. In that year the school further overhauled its 
curriculum, increasing coverage of Vietnam-style counterguerrilla, 
airmobile, and patrol operations. By 1968 nearly half of the infan¬ 
try officer basic course, which all newly minted infantry officers 
attended, was devoted to counterinsurgency subjects. Only the 



West Point cadets search a hut 
as part of counterguerrilla 
training. 


459 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



“Guerrillas ” enter a mock Viet Cong village used for counterguerrilla 
training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 

infantry officer advanced course reduced its counterinsurgency 
material on the premise that the majority of captains who took the 
course were Vietnam veterans and thus already familiar with how 
the war was being foughtV 

Like other branch schools, Fort Benning naturally focused its 
instruction on the tactics and techniques of its particular branch of 
service. Students learned how to conduct checkerboard patrols and 
how to establish night defensive perimeters. They learned how to 
search a village and how to conduct airmobile operations in a guer¬ 
rilla environment. In keeping with the Haines Board’s recommenda¬ 
tions, theoretical instruction was kept to a minimum. Still, students 
in the core officer courses spent about a dozen hours reviewing such 
theoretical subjects as the nature of third world insurgency, the tenets 
of Maoist revolutionary thought, U.S. national IDAD policy, and 
the basic principles of Army counterinsurgency doctrine. Students 
in the advanced course also received approximately three hours of 
counterinsurgency intelligence training, one hour on the legal aspects 
of guerrilla warfare, and five hours instruction in foreign counterin¬ 
surgency methods, the latter given by the school’s British and French 
liaison officers. Three hours of instruction and twenty hours of practi¬ 
cal exercises in civic action and psyops rounded out the nontactical 
aspects of the course, with additional hours of instruction integrated 
into applicable portions of the overall curriculum. Throughout, the 


460 


















The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


school emphasized the important role that civic action and psyops 
played in every action, from squad to brigade. Instructors conceded, 
however, that the political aspects of counterinsurgency were “prob¬ 
ably one ot the hardest things to get across to the student. Most of 
the students who have come here . . . basically are interested in how 
to go out and kill the guerrilla. This is the main interest of most of 
them. When we approach them with psychological operations and 
civic actions per se, we don’t get quite the same reactions that we do 
when we are talking about strictly counterguerrilla operations per se, 
or combat operations.” 1 ' 0 

As at the Infantry School, counterinsurgency instruction at the 
Command and General Staff College increased significantly as a 
result of the Vietnam War, growing from about 92 hours in 1965 
to 200 hours in 1968. By the time of the Tet offensive the college’s 
library contained approximately 700 books on counterinsurgency 
subjects. The quality of instruction improved also, thanks both to 
Army efforts as well as a steady influx of Vietnam veterans. After 
1965 the college routinely had about forty counterinsurgency-quali¬ 
fied instructors, a far cry from 1963 when the school had only six 
such individuals on its faculty. 01 The school examined past case stud¬ 
ies, recent operations, current doctrine, and the latest nation-building 
theories, with plenty of applicatory exercises in which students put 
their knowledge to work. 02 

Counterinsurgency studies at the Army’s highest educational insti¬ 
tution, the Army War College, naturally focused less on technique and 
more on concept and policy. Between 1965 and 1969 the War College 
gradually expanded instruction in counterinsurgency and nation build¬ 
ing from five to seven weeks, with additional coverage sprinkled 
through the rest of the curriculum. Like other Army institutions, the 
college kept abreast of developments, adding Carlos Marighella’s 
Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla to the more traditional readings of 
Mao and Giap. The school’s two deans of counterinsurgency studies— 
Col. Sam C. Holliday and Col. John J. McCuen—championed a holis¬ 
tic approach to counterinsurgency in which political, administrative, 
police, intelligence, and population- and resources-security measures 
predominated over pure combat operations. On the other hand, they 
recognized that major strikes at guerrilla bases and units were neces¬ 
sary if consolidation operations were to succeed. Consequently, they 
argued that conducting combat operations was a more suitable mission 
for U.S. military forces than engaging in police-type activities among 
the indigenous population, a principle that was already ingrained in 
U.S. doctrine. 03 


461 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

Training 

While the Army imparted doctrinal precepts through its school 
system, it drove home those lessons through training. Between 1960 
and 1965 the Army had progressively increased the amount of attention 
devoted to counterinsurgency subjects in its training program, though 
the degree of emphasis had varied from unit to unit. Although regula- 
tions required that units train for assigned contingency missions, most 
training was to be general in scope and not geared toward any particular 
country. This meant that units often did not undergo intensive, theater- 
specific training until after they had been notified of an impending 
movement overseas. Since units needed to be partially reorganized for 
counterguerrilla duty and since many units were either understrength 
or contained soldiers who were ineligible for immediate foreign ser¬ 
vice due to personnel policies, the first units to be deployed to Vietnam 
in 1965 and 1966 faced many obstacles. Conditions were frequently 
chaotic, as commanders scrambled to perform the myriad of training, 
logistical, and administrative tasks that needed to be accomplished 
during the few short months between notification of deployment and 
embarkation. Some units fared better than others, but none emerged 
from the process unscathed. The experience of the 2d Battalion, 8th 
Infantry, 4th Infantry Division, exemplifies the predeployment experi¬ 
ences of many units. 

In January 1966 the 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry, was at half-strength 
and had undergone routine small-unit counterguerrilla training. During 
the spring the unit conducted conventional individual training as it 
was gradually brought up to full strength. In May the Army notified 
the battalion that it was heading for Vietnam, triggering two months 
of intensive Vietnam-oriented training. Included in this regimen was 
the standard sixteen hours of Vietnam familiarization training pre¬ 
scribed by Continental Army Command for all deploying units and 
individuals. The course covered such subjects as perimeter defense, 
ambush drill, sanitation, survival, and Vietnamese culture. The bat¬ 
talion also underwent basic unit training, modified for Vietnam as the 
commander saw fit, since the Army had not prescribed a specific unit 
training program, either for Vietnam in particular or counterguerrilla 
warfare more generally. Finally, the battalion capped off its training 
by participating in a series of brigade-level exercises that practiced 
search-and-clear, search-and-destroy, clear-and-hold, and airmobile 
operations, all based on lessons learned material sent from Vietnam. In 
July the battalion embarked for Southeast Asia, conducting what train¬ 
ing it could aboard ship. When it arrived in August, the battalion was 


462 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 



Troops receiving counterambush instruction prior to deploying to Vietnam 


initially “buddiecT with veteran troops of the 25th Infantry Division, a 
common practice that facilitated the transfer of field lore to incoming 
formations. The unit then served in the field until it withdrew from 
Vietnam in 1970. 94 

Although the 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry, served for four years in 
Southeast Asia, its soldiers did not. Rotation policies and casualties 
brought a steady stream of new men into the unit. In 1965 the Army 
instituted a special training program for individual infantry replacements 
destined for Vietnam. New recruits and draftees initially underwent 
eight weeks of customary basic combat training, during which time they 
received a one-hour orientation lecture on counterinsurgency and some 
basic counterguerrilla instruction integrated into conventional training. 
Upon graduation from basic training, the Army sent its young soldiers to 
advanced individual training (AIT) where they would learn the particular 
skills associated with their intended function in the Army. While infan¬ 
trymen destined for service in the United States or Europe received the 
conventional eight-week AIT, infantrymen bound for Vietnam received 
a special Vietnam-oriented AIT program of nine weeks’ duration. The 
course stressed physical conditioning, field craft, weaponry, night opera¬ 
tions, and small-unit tactics. In addition to passing through rapid reaction 
courses and learning search techniques in mock Vietnamese villages, 
the trainees received the standard two-hour counterinsurgency lecture 
given to all AIT students, plus the sixteen-hour Vietnam orientation 
course before the Army shipped them overseas. Upon arrival in Vietnam, 


463 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



Infantry men learning how to locate and search Viet Cong tunnels during 
training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in 1966 


the individual replacement received five to six additional hours of ori¬ 
entation that included the nine rules of conduct among other subjects. 
The Army then sent the replacements on to their new units where they 
received further training, frequently of one week’s duration. The typi¬ 
cal Army draftee thus received about four and a half months of training 
before seeing combat, a significant sum considering that draftees served 
for only twenty-four months, no more than twelve of which were to be 
spent inside Vietnam itself. 4 ' 

Initially, the Army operated only two Vietnam-orientated AIT 
centers, but as the war progressed and the manpower drain continued, 
it converted all of its training centers to the Vietnam-based program. 
Meanwhile, Continental Army Command continued to improve the 
quality of its training based on reports from the field. Nevertheless, 
CONARC did not significantly alter the training regimen established 
during the early 1960s. It continued to require that all units conduct 
familiarization training in counterinsurgency and practical exercises 
in counterguerrilla warfare annually, though it adhered to its prewar 
philosophy of not specifying the exact length and content of training 
regimens. It did, however, prescribe a list of training subjects for units 
deploying to Vietnam. Included on this list were the code of conduct and 
the Geneva Conventions, enemy tactics, intelligence, civil affairs, psy¬ 
chological and pacification operations, airmobility, search-and-destroy 
operations, clear-and-secure operations, ambush, counterambush, and 


464 



The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


quick reaction drills, raiding and patrolling, reconnaissance, and fire 
support coordination. Although Continental Army Command reserved 
its most intensive counterguerrilla training requirements for units actu¬ 
ally assigned counterguerrilla missions, it continued to encourage all 
commanders to integrate counterguerrilla principles into “all phases of 
training at every practical opportunity.” While the focus of this training 
was tactical, counterinsurgency principles, including civic action, were 
covered as well. CONARC particularly enjoined commanders that “indi¬ 
viduals must be trained to avoid indiscriminate firing into populated 
areas and oriented on the problems of discriminating between insurgent/ 
noninsurgent indigenous personnel.” 96 

Recognizing a long-standing deficiency, CONARC regulations 
advised that up to one-half of all field training should be conducted 
at night. In 1967 the command directed that all combat units develop 
airmobility and long-range patrol capabilities, with the command oper¬ 
ating three reconnaissance and commando schools. In 1968 CONARC 
further mandated that every infantry battalion and armored cavalry 
squadron in the United States maintain a cadre of four officers and 
twelve noncommissioned officers qualified in jungle warfare in order 
to disseminate knowledge of such operations throughout the Army. 
Meanwhile, the Army sought to improve the realism of exercise play by 
issuing an entirely new manual governing the use of “enemy” guerrillas 
in training. FM 30-104, Aggressor Insurgent War (1967), was the first 
aggressor manual devoted entirely to guerrilla warfare. Unlike earlier 
manuals whose coverage of irregular warfare had been based largely on 
Soviet partisan techniques during a conventional conflict, FM 30-104 
(1967) depicted the guerrilla enemy entirely within the context of 
Maoist rural revolutions. The manual stressed the importance of politi¬ 
cal factors and described guerrilla methods that closely mirrored those 
used by the Viet Cong. 97 

For the most part, commanders in Vietnam reported satisfaction 
with the quality of men CONARC sent into the field, at least until 
morale and cohesion began to erode in the late 1960s. Still, some 
problems proved particularly resistant to improvement. Among these 
were deficiencies in land navigation, fire control, camp, sound, and 
light discipline, nocturnal operations, and small-unit leadership. That 
these deficiencies persisted was in no small measure due to the tre¬ 
mendous strains that both the draft and rotation policies placed on the 
Army’s overburdened personnel and training systems. By 1968 the 
Army was rotating about 30,000 men per month into Vietnam. While 
rotation policies undermined general unit cohesiveness and efficiency, 
they were particularly pernicious with regard to small-unit leadership. 


465 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 



A “guerrilla ” sniper takes aim at a patrol during counterguerrilla 
training at Fort McClellan, Alabama. 


Between July and October 1966, for example, rotation policies stripped 
the 1st Infantry Division of 60 percent of its company commanders. 
Other units experienced similar “brain drains,” and soon the Army 
had exhausted its pool of experienced small-unit leaders. Replacement 
officers and NCOs were frequently hastily trained and devoid of expe¬ 
rience, an especially serious handicap in what was essentially a small- 
unit war. Try as it might, the Army was never able to find a satisfactory 
solution to this dilemma. 4 " 

The State of Doctrine at the End of the Vietna m War 

During the Vietnam War the Army expended a great deal of effort to 
redress perceived weaknesses in the content, organization, and presen¬ 
tation of its counterinsurgency doctrine. New manuals were written, old 
ones refined, and lessons learned or relearned amplified as appropriate. 
The process was by no means flawless. As in the early 1960s continued 
friction between Combat Developments Command and Continental 
Army Command complicated the doctrinal development and dissemi¬ 
nation process, as did internal turf battles within CDC itself. While 
these problems bedeviled the presentation of doctrine, other more sub¬ 
stantive issues had also remained unresolved. Differences of opinion 
continued to be expressed in manuals over civic action, as well as the 
relative priority of military versus political matters. Moreover, certain 


466 





The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


stability operation missions, like truce enforcement and peacekeeping, 
never managed to emerge from the shadow of counterinsurgency and 
remained relatively undeveloped throughout the period. 99 Nevertheless, 
these shortfalls should not obscure the fact that changes had occurred. 
Over time the presentation of counterinsurgency doctrine had become 
more uniform and complete. Methods were revised based on Vietnam 
experience and new material incorporated to meet changing conditions. 
After 1965 the Army made a concerted effort to heighten the visibility 
accorded to the '‘softer’ 1 side of counterguerrilla warfare—civil affairs, 
psychological operations, and intelligence. Army doctrinal writings 
also exhibited a more sophisticated understanding of nation building, 
one that went beyond material progress and took greater cognizance of 
the less tangible, social side of modernization. On the whole, therefore, 
Army doctrine emerged from the war years with a fairly balanced and 
realistic portrayal of IDAD’s many facets and challenges. 

Yet, while Army doctrine had evolved between 1965 and 1975, few 
of the changes had been revolutionary. In fact, what is perhaps the most 
remarkable thing about the evolution of Army doctrine during the war 
years was how little it truly did change, notwithstanding the phenomenal 
outpouring of information and experience from Vietnam. One reason 
for this was that much of the information coming out of Vietnam was 
either repetitive in nature or contradictory, as war experiences varied 
by unit and geographical area. Moreover, most of the lessons learned 
literature dealt with arcane aspects of technique that did not rise to the 
level of doctrine. In the Army’s opinion, the role of doctrine was to lay 
down overarching principles. Vietnam-specific information, such as the 
peculiarities of Viet Cong booby traps, might be discussed in technical 
publications, but for the most part the Army did not deem such mat¬ 
ters worthy of inclusion in doctrinal manuals. Thus, despite calls from 
soldiers for more how-to-do-it information, Combat Developments 
Command steadfastly refused to produce a doctrinal field manual spe¬ 
cifically devoted to Vietnam, although it did produce a few manuals on 
aspects of Vietnam service, like riverine operations. 100 

Perhaps the most important reason for continuity in Army doctrine, 
however, stemmed from the fact that the Army believed that many of 
the lessons identified in Vietnam reports were not new at all, but rather 
reaffirmations of principles already embodied in existing manuals and 
texts. Indeed, throughout the conflict Army officials repeatedly stated 
that wartime events demonstrated that Army doctrine was fundamen¬ 
tally sound. This attitude reflected both the military’s conceptualiza¬ 
tion of the role of doctrine in general and its acceptance of the core 
concepts contained in its existing doctrine. Thus, just as unforeseen 


467 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


developments and battlefield failures had not led the Army to change 
significantly the central tenets of its conventional war doctrine during 
the Korean and Second World Wars, so too did the Army throughout 
the Vietnam conflict maintain the essential soundness of its counter¬ 
insurgency doctrine. And when setbacks occurred in Vietnam, Army 
officials tended to ascribe them as they had in wars past to tactical 
errors; intelligence failings; operational, strategic, and policy misjudg- 
ments; misapplications of technique; bureaucratic wrangling; South 
Vietnamese intransigence; North Vietnamese acumen; and situational 
factors beyond the Army’s control, rather than to conceptual inadequa¬ 
cies. Consequently, despite many adjustments and improvements along 
the way, Army counterinsurgency doctrine would emerge from the 
Vietnam War revised and refined, yet essentially unchanged. 101 


468 


Notes 


Dennis Vetock, Lessons Learned: A History ofU.S. Army Lesson Learning (Carlisle 
Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army Military History Institute, 1988), pp. 89, 91, 100, 104-15; 
Alan Armstrong, Utilization ot Current Cold War and Limited War Information Within 
USAIS (Student paper, Infantry School, 1967); Ltr, Lt Gen Albert O. Connor, DCSPER, 
to Lt Gen Harry W. O. Kinnard, CDC, 24 Oct 67, 732678, RG 338, NARA; Harry 
Kinnard, “Vietnam Has Lessons for Tomorrow’s Army,” Army 18 (November 1968): 
77-80; CONARC Pam 516-3, Counterinsurgency Operations, Counterinsurgency 
Instructional Training Materials, 10 Mar 66, Historians files, CMH. 

CDC Special Warfare Agency, Definitions To Support Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 
May 65; Routing Slip, Lt Col E. F. Corcoran, Policy Planning Branch, IPD, DCSOPS, to 
Col Stephanie, CDC, 15 Nov 65, with atchs. Both in 73A2677, RG 338, NARA. 

3 First quote from Gen Johnson, “The Army—Its Philosophy, Its View of Military 
Strategy, Its Posture,” AWC lecture, 11 Jun 65, p. 4, MHI. Second and third quotes from 
AR 320-5, Dictionary of United States Army Terms , 2 Feb 66, p. 215. 

4 Memo, ACSFOR for CDC, 6 Jan 66, sub: Study—Definitions To Support 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine; Study, Maj David R. Hughes, DCSOPS, 23 Aug 
65, sub: New Approach to National “Counterinsurgency” Terminology. Both in 
73A2677, RG 338, NARA. Memo, SGS for CSA, 27 Oct 65, sub: Terminology for 
Counterinsurgency, 68A3306, RG 319, NARA; David Hughes, The Unsettled Language 
of Counterinsurgency: Symptom of a Strategic Debate (Student paper, AWC, 1967). 

Quote from Memo, Col Charles J. Canella for Commandant, CGSC, 7 Oct 65, 
sub: Draper Report, 11th Annual Human Resources and Development Conference, 
p. 2, Historians files, CMH. Memo, SGS for CSA, 28 Dec 65, sub: Terminology for 
Counterinsurgency, CSA, 68A3306, RG 319, NARA. 

6 AR 320-5, Dictionary of Army Terms , 31 Oct 67, pp. 224, 396; MFR, Col John 
Sullivan, Comdr, Internal Defense and Development Field Office, 4 Nov 66, sub: Internal 
Defense and Development Conference; Memo, CDC for Distribution, 21 Jun 67, sub: 
Terminology Related to Stability Operations. Both in 73A2677, RG 338, NARA. Billy 
Wright, Alias Counterinsurgency (Student paper, AWC, 1968), pp. 1-7, 13. 

Quote from Ltr, Lt Gen Harry Kinnard, CDC, to Lt Gen Arthur Collins, ACSFOR, 
24 Aug 67, 73A2678, RG 338, NARA. Mark Boatner, “Our Widening Military Doctrine 
Gap,” Army 20 (August 1970): 20. 

N As an insurance measure, Combat Developments Command created a temporary 
entity, the Internal Defense and Development Field Office, to help shepherd counter¬ 
insurgency through the transition. Consisting of four people who reported directly to 
CDC’s chief of staff, the office promoted the integration of counterinsurgency into all 
studies and manuals. CDC closed the office in late 1967. Memos, CDC, 11 Apr 66, sub: 
Reorganization of USACDC, 71A5349, RG 338, NARA, and CDC for Distribution, 28 
Mar 67, sub: Combat Development Responsibilities for Internal Defense and Internal 
Development, Historians files, CMH. 

9 CDC General Orders 475, 28 Nov 67; Memo, Col Glenn Gardner, CDC Combat 
Support Group, for CG, CDC, 10 May 67, sub: Study on Most Appropriate Command 
Organization for the Discharge of Civil Affairs Responsibilities of USACDC, with 
atchs, Historians files, CMH. 


469 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

10 MFR, CDC SWA, 5 Jul 67, sub: SWA Mission and CDC Responsibilities for IDD, 
Historians files, CMH. 

11 First quote from Study, CDC Special Warfare Agency, Counterguerrilla Warfare 
Doctrine, Jan 66, p. 6, 73A2677, RG 338, NARA. Second quote from Special Warfare 
Agency, Doctrinal Literature for Counterinsurgency, 1965, p. 35, 73A2677, CDC, RG 
338, NARA. 

12 Quote from Study, CDC Special Warfare Agency, Counterguerrilla Warfare 
Doctrine, Jan 66, p. A-28, and see also pp. 17, l-A-29, 2-A-77, 4-A-l 15, 4-A-122, 4-A- 
123. FM 31-23, Stability Operations: U.S. Army Doctrine , 1967, pp. 49-50. 

13 Study, CDC Special Warfare Agency, Counterguerrilla Warfare Doctrine, Jan 66, 
pp. 8, 18-22, l-A-47, 4-A-l 12, 5-E-165, 5-F-169. 

14 First quote from FM 33-5, Psychological Operations—Techniques and Procedures, 

1966, p. 22, and see also pp. 23-25, 32. Second quote from ibid., p. 27. Third quote from 
ibid., p. 29. 

15 Quote from FM 41-5, Joint Manual for Civil Affairs, 1966, p. 27, and see also pp. 
10, 22, 28,51. 

16 FM 100-20, Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and Development, 1967, 
pp. 1-1, 3-3, 5-1 to 5-7, 6-4, 6-7 to 6-13, 7-1. 

1 First quote from FM 31-23, Stability Operations: U.S. Army Doctrine, 1967, p. 5. 
Second quote from ibid., p. 8. Third quote from ibid., p. 10. 

18 First quote from ibid., p. 24, and see also pp. 25, 30-31,49-50, 56, 91. Second and 
third quotes from ibid., p. 31. 

lg Quote from ibid., p. 66, and see also pp. 23-24, 64-65, 67, 69, 71. 

20 Ibid., pp. 13-28, 56, 74, 88, 90. 

21 Ibid., pp. 26-31,34. 

22 Ibid., pp. 23-24, 27, 53-60, 89-90. 

23 Annual Hist Sum, CDC, FY 66, p. 188, copy in CMH. 

24 Quote from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1967, p. 108, and see also 
pp. 7-8, 18, 36-39, 51, 69-70, 82, 85-86, 89-90. 

2 ' Quote from ibid., p. 7. 

26 Quote from ibid., p. 50. Memo, Special Warfare Agency for Infantry Agency, 30 
Jun 65, sub: Pre-Revision Input to FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, pp. 2-3, 
73A2677, RG 338, NARA. 

27 First quote from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1967, p. 22. Second 
quote from ibid., p. 35, and see also pp. 90, 96, 104-08, 113-17. Third, fourth, and fifth 
quotes from ibid., pp. 66, 144, 142, respectively. 

28 The Army replaced the term “free fire zone” with such euphemisms as “speci¬ 
fied strike zone” and “restricted area” for similar reasons. Hay, Tactical and Materiel 
Innovations, p. 177; Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports, pp. 83-84; Fact Sheets, c. 1971, 
sub: Background Information on the Term: Search and Destroy, and 11 May 71, sub: 
Specified Strike Zone. Both in Geo V Vietnam 350 Travel Pack, CMH. 

2 ‘' First quote from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1967, p. 50. Second 
quote from ibid., p. 12, and see also pp. 3, 7, 11, 35-38, 49, 54-58, 63-64, 88. 

30 Quote from FM 21-75, Combat Training of Individual Soldier and Patrolling, 

1967, p. 78, and see also pp. 77, 134-57, 164-65. 

31 Study, CDC, Intelligence Doctrine and Techniques for Internal Defense and 
Development (Task 20), 1 Oct 66, Pentagon Library, Va.; CDC, Task 2023 Tentative 
Conclusions, Part II, n.d., pp. 11-12, 73A2677, RG 338, NARA; Memo, Maj Gen 


470 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


Joseph A. McChristian, ACSI, for CG, CDC, 6 Nov 68, sub: Intelligence Doctrine and 
Techniques for Internal Defense and Development (Task 20), with atchs, 73A2677, RG 
338, NARA. 

Quote from Referral Slip, Lt Col Claud Hamilton, Asst Secy of the General Staff, 
28 Sep 66, sub: Civil Affairs Doctrine, Historians files, CMH. Memos, Col Darnell, 
CDC Special Warfare and Civil Affairs Group, for Maj Gen Harry L. Hillyard, 13 Apr 
64, sub: Aftermath of Gen H K Johnson’s Viet Nam Visit, CDC, and CSA CSM 67-14 
for DCSOPS et al., 11 Jan 67, sub: Improvement of Civil Affairs Capability, both in 
73A2677, RG 338, NARA; HQDA Cir 525—1, 20 Apr 67, sub: Military Operations, 
Improvement of Civil Affairs Capability, Historians files, CMH. 

Quote from FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Operations , 1967, p. 1, and see also pp. 13, 
39. 

4 Quotes from ibid., pp. 43^14. 

" Quote from ibid., p. 8, and see also pp. 33, 62. 

6 First quote from ibid., p. 46. Second quote from ibid., p. 62. Third and fourth 
quotes from ibid., p. 45. 

37 Quote from FM 7-20, The Infantry Battalions , 1969, p. 7-45. FM 31-75 (Test), 
Riverine Operations, 1968, p. 116. 

' For examples of critics of American attempts to defeat insurgencies by build¬ 
ing democracies and reforming societies, as well as statements by those who contin¬ 
ued to believe in the worthiness of “positive programs” but who conceded that such 
endeavors suffered from many problems, see James Lee, Which Strategy for Advance 
Insurgency, Pacification or Combat? (Student paper, AWC, 1967), pp. 1-12; George 
Tanham and Dennis Duncanson, “Some Dilemmas of Counterinsurgency,” Foreign 
Affairs 48 (October 1969): 113-22; Irving Heymont, “The U.S. Army and Foreign 
National Development,” Military Review 51 (November 1971): 17, 20-23; Barber and 
Ronning, Internal Security, pp. 20, 40—41, 230, 233-34; Garold Tippin, “The Army 
as Nationbuilder,” Military Review 50 (October 1970): 11-19; Joseph Cunningham, 
“The Validity of the Nation Building Concept,” U.S. Army War College Commentary 
(December 1967): D-3 to D-7. 

54 Quote from Nathan Leites and Charles Wolf, Rebellion and Authority: An Analytic 
Essay on Insurgent Conflicts, R-462-ARPA (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1970), 
p. 150, and see also pp. 37, 45, 71-75, 149-51, 156. Charles Wolf, Insurgency and 
Counterinsurgency: New Myths and Old Realities, P-3132-1 (Santa Monica, Calif.: 
RAND, 1965), pp. 1-14; Boyd Bashore, “The Parallel Hierarchies, Part I,” Infantry 
Journal 58 (May-June 1968): 5-8; Boyd Bashore, “The Parallel Hierarchies, Part II,” 
Infantry Journal 58 (July-August 1968): 11-15. 

40 First two quotes from Bashore, “Parallel Hierarchies, Part II,” p. 11. Third quote 
from Wolf, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, p. 10. 

41 Bashore, “Parallel Hierarchies, Part II,” p. 11; Leites and Wolf, Rebellion and 
Authority, p. 33. 

42 Quote from Summary Analyses of Weaknesses in Army Psychological Operations, 
atch to Study, International and Civil Affairs Directorate, DCSOPS, Progress Psyop— 
1968, Program to Revitalize, Expand the Scope of, and Strengthen Army Psychological 
Operations, 1968, p. 4, Historians files, CMH. 

43 Rpt, DCSOPS, 1 Aug 67, sub: Psychological Operations—Role in Establishing 
a Sense of Nationhood, Psyop-Reason, pp. 29-31, 70A2673, RG 319, NARA (here¬ 
after cited as Psyop-Reason); Rpt of the Ad Hoc Committee on Army Psychological 


471 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Operations, 21 Apr 67, pp. 5, 8-9, 17-21, 45, atch to Memo, Lt Gen Harry J. Lemley, 
DCSOPS, for CSA, 11 May 67, sub: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Army 
Psychological Operations, 70A2675, RG 319, NARA. 

44 Psyop-Reason, pp. iii, 15, 21-31, 37, 58; Memo, DCSOPS for CSA, 19 Oct 67, 
sub: Psyop and Nationhood, with atchs, 70A2673, RG 319, NARA. 

45 Quote from Psyop-Reason, preface. Memo, David McGiffert, Under Secy of the 
Army, for Lt Gen Harry J. Lemley, DCSOPS, 8 Mar 68, sub: Psychological Operations 
Role and Establishing a Sense of Nationhood, Historians files, CMH. 

46 First quote from Study, ACSFOR, Counterguerrilla Operations, 19 Mar 68, p. II- 
10, 73A2677, RG 338, NARA, and see also pp. 1-4, III-13 to III-16. Second, third, and 
fourth quotes from ibid., p. Ill-12. 

47 Quote from ibid., p. II-9. 

48 Quote from ibid., p. Ill-18, and see also pp. II-10,11-12, III-17. 

44 Quote from ibid., p. II-4, and see also pp. 11-18, III-8. 

50 Quote from ibid., p. II-6, and see also pp. 1-23, II-5, II-7, II-8, III-3, III-4, IV-2, 
IV-3. 

51 Quote from Memo, Lt Gen Arthur Collins, Jr., ACSFOR, for CSA, 30 Apr 68, 
sub: Counterguerrilla Operations, p. 2. Rationale, atch to Summary Sheet, ACSFOR to 
CSA, c. May 68, sub: Refining the Army’s Role in Stability Operations; Concept Paper, 
ACSFOR, c. Apr 68, sub: Counterguerrilla Operations, p. 2. All in 71 A3100, RG 319, 
NARA. 

72 Quotes from Summary Sheet, Maj Gen William C. Gribble, Dep ACSFOR, to 
CSA, 24 Jan 68, sub: Special Study on Counter-Guerrilla Operations. Ltr, Col Daniel 
Williams, Actg Dir of Doctrine and Systems, ACSFOR, to Distribution, 1 Aug 68, sub: 
Study, “Counterguerrilla Operations”; Memo, CSA CSM 68-185 for Heads of Army 
Staff Agencies, 20 May 68, sub: Refining the Army’s Role in Stability Operations. All 
in 71 A3100, RG 319, NARA. William Buchanan and Robert Hyatt, “Capitalizing on 
Guerrilla Vulnerabilities,” Military Review 48 (August 1968): 3-40; William Buchanan 
and Robert Hyatt, “Building a Counterinsurgent Political Infrastructure,” Military 
Review 48 (September 1968): 25^41. 

53 Quote from Summary Sheet, ACSFOR to CSA, c. May 68, sub: Refining the 
Army’s Role in Stability Operations, 71 A3100, RG 319, NARA. 

74 General Johnson also enlarged an intelligence career track, the foreign area special¬ 
ist (FAS) program, to produce an expanded cadre of third world country and regional 
specialists. In 1973 the Army merged the two programs into a single foreign area officer 
(FAO) career track. ARs 614-134, Military Assistance Officer Program (MAOP), 7 Mar 
69, and 614-142, Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Program , chg 1, 6 Apr 73. 

Memo, Westmoreland for McGiffert, 19 Aug 68, sub: Psyop-Reason Study, 
Historians files, CMH. 

56 Quoted words from Rpt, DCSOPS, Nation Building Contributions of the Army 
(NABUCA), 1968, p. i, 388.5, Civil Affairs, CMH. 

57 First quote from ibid., p. IV-16. Second quote from ibid., p. IV-17, and see also 
pp. ii-iii. 

58 First quote from ibid., p. iv. Second quote from ibid., p. 11-18, and see also pp. iii, 

v. 

59 Quotes from ibid., p. IV-18, and see also pp. iii, IV-17. Memo, Adjutant General 
for Distribution, 16 Jan 69, sub: U.S. Army’s Contribution to Nation Building, 388.5, 
Civil Affairs, CMH. 


472 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


M Quote from Conflict Environment and Implications for the Army, p. 19, atch to 

Rpt, DCSOPS, 1 Jun 68, sub: Civil Affairs Improvement Program, 72A3468 RG 319 
NARA. 

Quote from Rpt of the Ad Hoc Committee on Army Psychological Operations, 21 
Apr 67, p. 37, and see also pp. 35-36, 38. 

The Army eventually published final versions of FM 31—75, Riverine Warfare , and 
FM 31—55, Border Security/Anti-Infiltration Operations , in 1971 and 1972, respectively. 

63 Fi rst quote from FM 100-5, Operations of Army Forces in the Field , 1968, p. 13-1. 
Second quote from ibid., p. 13-2. Third quote from ibid., p. 13-4, and see also, pp 1-2 
1-6, 13-7 to 13-9. 

64 Quote from FM 31-21, Special Forces Operations — U.S. Army Doctrine , 1969 p 
10-4. 

65 Quoted words from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations , chg 1, 1969, p. 12, 
and see also pp. 4, 8-11, 13-14. FM 7-20, The Infantry Battalion, 1969, pp. 7-44. 

66 Quote from FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, chg 2, 1970, p. 3. 

67 Quoted word from FM 30-31, Stability Operations—Intelligence, 1970, p. 2-1. 

68 Inaugural Address, 20 Jan 61, in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United 
States: John F Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1962), 
p. L 

64 Quote from Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, p. 293. National Security Decision 
Memorandum 20 of 10 July 1969 established the Nixon Doctrine. Nixon revealed the 
basic thrust of the policy in a news conference on Guam on 25 July 1969. W. Bruce 
Weinrod, “Counterinsurgency: Its Role in Defense Policy,” Strategic Review 2 (Fall 
1974): 37-38. 

Compare FM 100-20, Field Service Regulations, Internal Defense and 
Development, 1964, p. 9, with FM 100-20, Field Sendee Regulations: Internal Defense 
and Development , 1967, p. 4-1, and FM 100-20, Field Sendee Regulations: Internal 
Defense and Development, 1972, p. 4-1. 

1 Memo, CDC for Institute for Combined Arms and Support et al., 23 Nov 70, sub: 
ODCSOPS Study “The United States Army’s Role in Support of Nation Building,” 
Historians files, CMH. 

- Quotes from Rpt, DCSOPS, The United States Army’s Role in Support of Nation 
Building, c. 1970, p. 7, Historians files, CMH. 

73 Quote from ibid., p. iv, and see also, pp. v, vii. Clarke, Final Years, pp. 371-72; 
Ricky Waddell, “The Army and Peacetime Low Intensity Conflict, 1961-1993: The 
Process of Peripheral and Fundamental Military Change” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia 
University, 1994), p. 218; Peter Dawkins, “The U.S. Army and the ‘Other’ War in 
Vietnam: A Study of the Complexity of Implementing Organizational Change” (Ph.D. 
diss., Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 1979), pp. 63, 68-71, 
77-79, 126, 239^43, 247^48. 

74 First quote from Rpt, DCSOPS, The United States Army’s Role in Support of 
Nation Building, c. 1970, p. iv, and see also pp. 4, 9. Second quote from ibid., p. v. 

75 Quote from ibid., p. v, and see also pp. vi-vii. 

76 Quote from FM 31-23, Stability Operations: U.S. Army Doctrine, 1972, p. 4- 
3, and see also p. 4-1. FM 100-20, Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and 
Development, 1972, p. 4-1. 

Quote from FM 100-20, Internal Defense and Development, U.S. Army Doctrine, 
1974, p. 1 -1, and see also pp. 8-2, 8-11. 


473 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


78 Quote from ibid., p. 1-1. 

79 Quote from FM 100-20, Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and 
Development , 1967, p. 1-1. FM 100—20, Internal Defense and Development, U.S. Army 
Doctrine , 1974, p. 1-1. 

80 Quote from FM 100-20, Internal Defense and Development, U.S. Army Doctrine, 
1974, p. 4-1, and see also pp. 2-1, 4-2 to 4-4. 

81 Quotes from ibid., p. 4-1. 

82 Rpt of the Department of the Army Board to Review Army Officer Schools, 2 
vols., Feb 66, 1:54, 634, 636-40. 

83 Ltr, Col Sidney Gritz, Adj Gen, CONARC, to Commandant, Special Warfare 
School, 13 Feb 67, JFKSWC/HO; Historical Supplement, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy 
Center for Special Warfare, 1967, p. 68. 

84 First quote from AR 350-25, Civil Affairs Training , 28 Apr 67, p. 1. Second quote 
from ibid., p. 2, and see also p. 3. Rpt, c. 1966, sub: Status Report on the U.S. Army 
Psychological Operations Improvement Program as of 23 February 1965 [sic], CDC, 
73A2677, RG 338, NARA; Common Subject Lesson Plan L294, Institute for Military 
Assistance (IMA), Psychological Operations, Mar 71, pp. LM-4, LM-22 to LM-27, 
86-0551, RG 338, NARA. 

85 USMA, Department of Military Art and Engineering, Organizational History and 
POI files, 1965 to 1974; USMA, Office of Military Instruction, Department of Tactics, 
POI files, 1965 to 1974; Memo, Brig Gen Richard P. Scott, Commandant of Cadets, for 
Superintendent, USMA, 7 Apr 66, sub: Counterinsurgency Committee Report, 1966, 
10002-02 Training Operations files, USMA; Memo, Scott for Superintendent, USMA, 
4 May 67, sub: Counterinsurgency, 10002-02 Training Operations files, USMA. 

86 Quote from Lesson Guide MS 401-8, USMA, The Brigade in Stability Operations, 
1970, p. 4. 

87 First quote from Lesson Guide MS 401^4, USMA, Operational Environment of 
Stability Operations, 1970, p. 4. Second quote from USMA, Notes for the Course in 
the History of the Military Art, HI 401/402, 1971-72, p. 7-11, History Department, 
Organizational History and POI files, 1971-72, USMA. Third quote from Lesson Guide 
MS 401-5, USMA, Military Programs and Tactical Operations in Stability Operations, 
1970, p. 11. 

88 Common Subject Lesson Plan, IMA, The Insurgency Problem, Mar 70, 86-0551, 
RG 338, NARA; Brian Smith, “United States-Latin American Military Relations Since 
World War II: Implications for Human Rights,” in Human Rights and Basic Needs in 
the Americas, ed. Margaret Crahan (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 
1982), p. 292n29; “U.S. Army School of the Americas,” Military> Review 50 (April 
1970): 90; Ott, Field Artillery, pp. 135-36; POI 5D-8105, Civil Affairs School, Civil 
Affairs Officer Course, May 71, 85-0301, RG 338, NARA. 

89 Rpt of the Department of the Army Board to Review Army Officer Schools, 2 
vols., Feb 66, 1:636; Richard Weinert, The Role of USCONARC in the Army Buildup, 
FY 66, 1967, pp. 50-52, copy in CMH; Historical Supplement, 1966, U.S. Army 
Infantry School, 1967, pp. 7, 11-13; POI, IOBC 2-7-C20, Infantry School, Mar 67; 
POI 2-7-C20, Infantry School, Infantry Officer Basic Course, Jan 68; Historical 
Supplement, 1967, U.S. Army Infantry School, 1968, p. 8. 

90 Quote from Infantry School, Infantry Instructors’ Workshop, Report of Conference, 
22-26 August 1966, p. 48, and see also p. 40. POI 2-7-C22, Infantry School, Infantry 
Officer Advanced Course, Mar 67, p. 30; POI 2-7-C22, Infantry School, Infantry 


474 


The Evolution of Doctrine, 1965-1975 


Officei Advanced Course, Aug 73, p. 4A19; POI 2-7-C20, Infantry School, Infantry 
Officer Basic Course, Jan 68. 

Stephen Bowman, The Evolution of United States Army Doctrine for 
Counterinsurgency Warfare: From World War II to the Commitment of Combat 
Units in Vietnam (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1985), pp. 60—61; Factors To Be 
Considered in Counterinsurgency Training of U.S. Personnel, p. 3, atch to Briefing, 
Special Warfare Center, 19 Oct 65, sub: Counterinsurgency Training Review, 
Historians files, CMH. 

CGSC, Internal Defense: Threat and Response , RB 31-100, 3 vols. (Fort 
Leavenworth, Kans.: CGSC, 1970), 1:3-1; An. B, CGSC Capability To Support ICAS 
in the Development of Doctrine for Stability Operations, atch to Memo, Institute of 
Combined Arms and Support (ICAS), 3 Jan 68, sub: Doctrine for Stability Operations, 
Historians files, CMH; Briefing, CGSC, Oct 65, sub: Committee II (Training), 
President’s Review of Counterinsurgency, pp. C-2, D-l, N-13423.355-B-3, CARL. 

93 AWC Curriculum Pamphlets, 1965-1970; Harry Ball, Of Responsible Command: 
A History of the US. Army War College (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Alumni Association of 
the U.S. Army War College, 1983), p. 449; AWC, Military Strategy Textbook, vol. 4, 
1972, p. 27; AWC, Selected Readings, Academic Year 1969, Military Strategy Seminar, 
vol. 3, 1969; Sam Holliday, “Stability Operations,” AWC lecture, 5 Feb 69, pp. 8-15, 
Historians files, CMH; Sam Holliday, “Warfare of the Future,” Military' Review 49 
(August 1969): 12-17; McCuen, Art of Counter-Revolutionary War , pp. 78, 85-122, 
196, 206-09, 235, 327. 

44 Annual Hist Supplements, CY 66, 2d Bn, 8th Inf, p. 2; CY 66, 2d Bde, 4th Inf Div, 
pp. 2-1, 2-2; and CY 66, 1st Bde, 4th Inf Div, pp. 4-5, copies in CMH; John Kilfoil, 
Army Training Program To Train the Infantry Battalion for Both Conventional and 
Unconventional Combat (Student paper, IOAC, Infantry School, 1967); Weinert, The 
Role of USCONARC, 1967, pp. 76-77. 

95 ASubjScds 21—43, Orientation in Counterinsurgency Operations, 9 Jun 66, and 
21-43, Orientation in Stability Operations, 17 Oct 69, Historians files, CMH; Common 
Subject Lesson Plan L296, IMA, Introduction to Internal Defense and Internal 
Development, Jun 71, NARA; CONARC History, 1965-66, pp. 181, 183, copy in CMH; 
USARV Reg 350-1, Replacement Training, 71-3078, RG 319, NARA; Earl Cole, 
“Replacement Operations in Vietnam,” Military Review> 48 (February 1968): 3-8. 

46 First quote from ASubjScd 7-2, Rifle Squad Tactical Training, Dec 65, p. 1. 
Second quote from ASubjScd 21^13, Orientation in Stability Operations, 17 Apr 69, p. 
3. CONARC Reg 350-1, 6 Sep 67, an. B, USCONARC Training Directive, Mandatory, 
Mission, and Special Emphasis Training, pp. 10-17; CONARC Reg 350-1, 3 Apr 67, 
ans. M and N to USCONARC Training Directive, Counterguerrilla Training. 

1,7 CONARC Reg 350-1, 10 Sep 68, chg 2, an. B, Mandatory, Mission, and Special 
Emphasis Training; Memo, D, FPA, for Johnson, 21 Mar 68, sub: Conversion of 
Standard AIT Companies to RVN Oriented Infantry AIT Companies, with atchs, 
71A3100, RG 319, NARA. 

48 Direct Quotes from Senior Army Officers Visited in RVN, c. Mar 66, 353, 
69A2595, RG 319, NARA; Rpt, Col William Towson, CONARC Team Ch, to DCSIT, 
CONARC, 22 Mar 66, sub: Report of Staff Visit, Infantry School Library; Memo, Maj 
Gen DePuy, 1st Inf Div, for CG, USARV, 12 Oct 66, 70A2673, RG 319, NARA; Kurt 
Anderson-Vie, “Company Command in Vietnam: A Comparative Analysis” (Student 
thesis, CGSC, 1991), pp. 49-56, 70; Shelby Stanton, The Rise and Fall of an American 


475 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Army: U.S. Ground Forces in Vietnam, 1965-1973 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 
1985), pp. 25-26, 70, 331. 

w For the relatively static nature of doctrine for non-insurgency related contingency 
operations, compare FM 100-5, Field Service Regulations—Operations , 1962, pp. 
155-62, FM 100-5, Operations of Army Forces in the Field, 1968, pp. 12-1 to 12-6; FM 
61-100, The Division, 1962, pp. 4-5, 235-40; FM 61-100, The Division, 1965, pp. 3, 
146-48; FM 61-100, The Division, 1968, pp. 1-2, 12-15 to 12-18. 

100 Criticism over the lack of how-to-do-it information was not limited to counter¬ 
insurgency manuals. Combat Operations Research Group, Studies of Doctrinal Field 
Manuals: A Further Analysis of User Acceptability, CORG-M-252, Oct 66; Ltr, 
Kinnard to Connor, 13 Nov 67, 73-2678, RG 338, NARA. 

"" DA Pam 350-15-12, Training Operations-Lessons Learned, 1 Jan 69, p. 2; Rpt, 
CDC, Review and Analysis of the Evaluation of Army Combat Operations in Vietnam, 
30 Apr 66, pp. 2-II-44 to 2-II-48, Historians files, CMH. 


476 


10 


The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


The Great Retreat: Counterinsurgency in the 1970s 

The fall of Saigon in April 1975 marked more than the end of 
the Vietnam War. It represented the end of an era. If Kennedy’s 1961 
pledge to “bear any burden” had announced the birth of the counter¬ 
insurgency age, then the popular refrain of the early 1970s—“no more 
Vietnams”—was its eulogy. Bitterly divided over a failed war, preoc¬ 
cupied by a sputtering economy and divisive social and political issues 
at home, and disillusioned by the inability of philanthropic nation¬ 
building programs to transform third world countries into prosperous 
democratic societies, the American body politic turned its collective 
back on counterinsurgency. The Nixon Doctrine not only remained in 
force after Nixon’s departure from office in 1974, but one federal agen¬ 
cy after another set aside its counterinsurgency implements for more 
conventional tools. During the 1970s, the Central Intelligence Agency 
gradually shifted its priorities away from counterinsurgency to more 
customary intelligence-gathering operations. The State Department 
readily shed some of the operational roles that counterinsurgency had 
imposed on it for the more comfortable routines of traditional diplo¬ 
macy, while the Agency for International Development reverted to 
emphasizing long-term development programs over the type of short¬ 
term, civic action-style projects that had come into vogue during the 
counterinsurgency era. In 1975 AID also terminated at the direction 
of Congress its foreign police assistance program. The cancellation, 
driven by public perceptions that the program had bolstered repressive, 
right-wing regimes at the expense of human rights, dealt a severe blow 
to national counterinsurgency policy, which had assigned a prominent 


477 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


role to the creation of effective indigenous police organizations as the 
first bulwark against subversion. 1 

The Army joined the civilian agencies in downgrading counterinsur¬ 
gency. As early as 1972, a Department of Defense study had concluded 
that while the nation needed to maintain a counterinsurgency capability, 
that capability should be restricted to providing security assistance. The 
Vietnam experience had discredited direct American action in the eyes 
of the public. The study also recommended that the counterinsurgency 
assistance program be separated from the military services “because, if 
it is not so separated, the dominant traditional U.S. military perceptions 
and routines will ultimately suffocate it. Thus, if the role is to survive, 
the resources, organizations, and decision processes that it encom¬ 
passes will have to be formally decoupled from those concerned with 
‘direct military intervention’ and from the massive arms transfers that 
are designed to develop conventional forces in ‘forward-defense coun¬ 
tries.”’ Although the Pentagon did create a Defense Security Assistance 
Agency in 1972, it declined to implement the study’s recommendation 
to create a unified command for low intensity conflict—a step that 
would not be taken until the defense reforms of the 1980s. 2 

Meanwhile, in 1973 Secretary of the Army Howard H. Callaway 
and Army Chief of Staff Abrams formed a study group of their own to 
assess the service’s future. Like the studies that had been done under 
Westmoreland, the Strategic Assessment Group foresaw a multipolar 
world with diminishing resources being allocated to the Army to perform 
its many roles. The group complained particularly about the existence of 
an intellectual and policy elite that was hostile to the military but was still 
committed to pursuing idealistic agendas abroad, noting that “ironically, 
the very persons who decry America’s past role as a ‘world policeman’ 
are the very same persons who demand that the United States ‘do some¬ 
thing’ about massacres in Burundi, civil war in Chile, and unrest on the 
Indian subcontinent.” Still, the report acknowledged that the American 
people had lost their taste for military interventions and that “for the fore¬ 
seeable future this repugnance will tend to limit foreign involvement to 
those areas where hard tangible United States interests are unequivocally 
involved.” Since America’s greatest strategic interests lay in Europe and 
since the greatest threat to those interests was the massive armed might 
of the Soviet Union, the group concluded that the Army should devote its 
dwindling resources to the defense of Western Europe by conventional 
forces. Counterinsurgency, the obsession of the 1960s, would return to 
the periphery of military affairs. 3 

The study’s impact was soon apparent. Although the Army retained 
the Special Action Forces, it abandoned the more interventionist 


478 



The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


Regional Assistance Command concept and deactivated the 8th Special 
Action Force, which had played a major role in implementing American 
counterinsurgency assistance in Latin America. The Army blunted 
the spearhead of the early counterinsurgency movement—Special 
Forces—reducing it from 13,000 men in 1971 to 3,000 men by 1974. 
The military did form two Ranger battalions in the early 1970s, but 
unlike Special Forces, the Rangers trained as elite crisis reaction troops 
rather than as guerrillas or nation builders. Funding for counterinsur¬ 
gency research, already on the wane, dried up, as did appropriations for 
civic action activities. 4 

The Military Assistance Officer Program likewise fell on hard 
times. Despite General Johnson’s intentions, the Army had never fully 
implemented his decision to create G—5 and S—5 slots in brigades and 
battalions throughout the Army. By 1973 the program numbered only 
433 soldiers, a far cry from the 6,000 Johnson had hoped to recruit. 
Moreover, the program had become a lightning rod for civilian critics 
who charged that the Army was trying to create a corps of gauleit- 
ers and proconsuls. While there was no truth to the accusations, the 
criticism compelled the service to review the content of Military 
Assistance Officer Program training annually to ensure that the pro¬ 
gram s faculty at Fort Bragg did not put “undue emphasis on the direct 
or implied role of the Army in such subject areas as political action; 
social and economic development (nation building); institution build¬ 
ing; and psychological operations and civil affairs.” The Army further 
insisted that program instructors instill in their pupils the notion that 
“the fundamental role of the Army is to defeat enemy forces in land 
combat, and to gain control of the land and people based on the control 
and guidance of United States higher civilian authority.” By 1973 the 
luster had fallen off the Military Assistance Officer Program, and the 
Army combined the program with the foreign area specialist career 
track to create a new Foreign Area Officer Program. Although the new 
career track retained civil-military staff features, it was less ambitious 
than the original program and would take on an increasingly intel¬ 
ligence flavor." 

Shifts in the Military Assistance Officer Program were mirrored 
throughout the Army’s training and educational systems. Although a 
decade of irregular warfare had bequeathed to the service a sizable pool 
of combat veterans, many of these men lacked conventional warfare 
training. As one battalion commander complained in 1971, “training 
problems were compounded by the fact that most of the men in the 
battalion had no experience in conventional, mid-intensity type tactics. 
Tactical operations such as delaying actions, manning a combat outpost 


479 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


line, rifle company in the attack, etc., were completely new to the junior 
officers and NCOs.” 6 

The Army responded by reemphasizing conventional training. In 
1971 the service deleted stability operations orientation from basic 
combat courses. The following year Continental Army Command dis¬ 
continued all Vietnam-oriented advanced individual training, replacing 
the jungle and counterguerrilla warfare segments with conventional, 
mechanized warfare drills. The Army likewise dropped the requirement 
that all combat officers receive Ranger training, turned the Ranger 
course at Fort Benning toward more conventional applications, and 
rescinded guidance detailing counterguerrilla warfare training, thereby 
leaving the Army without a blueprint for such instruction for the first 
time in twenty years. As the decade progressed fewer and fewer units 
performed any meaningful counterinsurgency preparation. 7 

The gradual disappearance of counterinsurgency from Army train¬ 
ing schedules was replicated in the classroom. As Deputy Chief of Staff 
for Military Operations Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell noted as early as 
October 1969, “the question confronting the Army, as a result of con¬ 
gressional and public reaction to Vietnam, is not that we have a third 
mission, rather how far do we go in carrying out, pragmatically, the 
application of political, economic, psychological, and sociological fac¬ 
tors.” The answer proved elusive. A 1971 Continental Army Command 
query seeking recommendations for curriculum changes found con¬ 
siderable disagreement over whether or not the service should curtail 
the amount of civil affairs, psyops, and counterinsurgency instruction. 
Some diminution of coverage was inevitable given America’s with¬ 
drawal from Vietnam and the apparent unlikelihood that combat units 
would be sent into similar situations anytime soon, but what the right 
mix might be was difficult to pinpoint. 8 

In the end, the Army permitted each school to make its own deci¬ 
sions on this question, with varying results. Some schools quickly 
curtailed counterinsurgency instruction, while others moved at a more 
measured pace. Ultimately, all dramatically reduced counterinsurgency 
studies. The Military Academy terminated its mandatory counterinsur¬ 
gency course—Military Science 401—in 1974. The Infantry School 
likewise eliminated counterinsurgency studies in its basic course after 
the war but continued to offer several dozen hours in the advanced 
course until 1978, when it discontinued that as well. By 1977 the 
Command and General Staff College was still offering forty hours of 
low intensity conflict instruction, though this dropped to a mere eight 
hours in 1979. Still, this was better than the Army War College, where 
the withdrawal of counterinsurgency material quickly turned into a 


480 



The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


rout. As early as 1969, school deputy commandant Brig. Gen. Michael 
J. Greene had predicted that “as time goes by, we will have increasing 
difficulty justifying 'stability operations’ as a separate course” due to 
changing public and government attitudes toward the subject. By the 
following year, pressure was developing from within the student body 
to drop the internal defense and development course because a grow¬ 
ing number of officers expressed the opinion that internal defense and 
development was unsatisfying and “non-military” and hence belonged 
more to civilian agencies than the Army. By 1972 the War College had 
reduced internal defense and development instruction to two weeks, but 
still the students were unhappy, with one commenting that the IDAD 
course constituted “the worst two weeks of the best year of my life.” 
The college heeded the students’ complaints, and by 1975 the school 
had reduced its coverage of insurgency and counterinsurgency to two 
days. 9 

Counterinsurgency was not even safe in its cradle, the John F. 
Kennedy Institute for Military Assistance at Fort Bragg. Named after 
the patron saint of counterinsurgency and Special Forces, the institute 
contained separate schools for civil affairs and security assistance, psy¬ 
chological operations, and Special Forces. By 1973 the Special Forces 
officer course at Fort Bragg was devoting only 10 of its 704 academic 
hours to stability operations, as the branch turned its back on counter¬ 
insurgency in favor of its original unconventional warfare mission. By 
1975 the course had reduced its stability operations coverage to a single 
hour covering the legal aspects of counterinsurgency. Meanwhile, Fort 
Bragg’s Civil Affairs and Security Assistance School eliminated the 
civic action course from its curriculum altogether. Only the foreign 
area officer, civil affairs, and civil-military officer courses continued 
to discuss counterinsurgency-related subjects in any detail, albeit gin¬ 
gerly to avoid civilian criticism. Thus, while counterinsurgency and 
counterguerrilla doctrine remained on the books, progressively fewer 
personnel were given the opportunity to study, learn, and practice the 
tenets of that doctrine." 1 

The Army’s doctrinal community was not far behind the training 
and education systems in marginalizing counterinsurgency. Although 
the internal defense and development manuals of the early 1970s had 
begun to distance the Army from what once had been the service’s 
“third principal mission,” the true sea change occurred in 1976 when 
the Army published a new edition of its capstone combat manual, FM 
100-5, Operations. Written largely by General William E. DePuy, one 
of the leading tacticians of the Vietnam War, the manual represented 
a major reorientation in doctrinal thought. Stating that he wanted to 


481 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


help the Army prepare to fight the next war rather than the last one, 
DePuy produced a manual that was devoted to the defense of Western 
Europe against the Warsaw Pact. Gone were all references to counter¬ 
insurgency, nation-building, civil affairs, and psychological operations, 
replaced by a single-minded emphasis on the conduct of conventional 
combat operations in a major war. In contrast to the 1968 edition of 
FM 100-5, which had stated that “the fundamental purpose of U.S. 
military forces is to preserve, restore, or create an environment of 
order or stability within which the instrumentalities of government 
can function effectively under a code of laws,” the very first sentence 
of the 1976 manual declared unequivocally that “the Army’s primary 
objective is to win the land battle —to fight and win battles, large or 
small, against whatever foe, wherever we may be sent to war.” Although 
such a mandate included fighting guerrillas, the manual returned to an 
old formulation in arguing that the military should focus its energies 
on preparing to fight its most dangerous opponent. This was especially 
true given the lethality of the modern battlefield (as demonstrated by 
the 1973 Arab-Israeli War) and the precariousness of NATO defenses 
on the German frontier, factors that led DePuy to believe that the Army 
had to be able to “win the first battle of the next war.” Thus, while he 
acknowledged that the Army had a wide variety of missions, strategic 
and tactical necessity dictated a very different prioritization of those 
missions than had existed just a few years before." 

DePuy envisioned that FM 100-5 (1976) would serve as the cap¬ 
stone for a whole generation of new subsidiary manuals, each devoted 
to a particular type of military activity. Forty derivative manuals 
were planned, including one designated FM 90-8, Counterguerrilla 
Operations. Training and Doctrine Command initially intended to pub¬ 
lish the new counterguerrilla manual in 1976, but this did not occur. 
Instead, soldiers would continue to use the 1967 edition of FM 31-16, 
Counterguerrilla Operations (with the 1969 and 1970 changes), until 
1981, when the Army rescinded the Vietnam-era manual without pro¬ 
viding a replacement. Not until 1986, after going five years without any 
type of counterguerrilla combat doctrine, would the service belatedly 
publish FM 90-8, Counterguerrilla Operations .' 2 

Over time, many of the Army’s branch and functional manu¬ 
als followed the lead set by FM 100-5 (1976) and either reduced 
or eliminated counterguerrilla and IDAD-related material from 
their pages. This did not mean, however, that the Army was with¬ 
out counterinsurgency doctrine during the late 1970s, as both the 
Army’s capstone IDAD manual, FM 100-20, Internal Defense and 
Development, US. Army Doctrine (1974), and a number of derivative 


482 



The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


manuals, including FM 31—16, Counterguerrilla Operations (1967); 
FM 19-50, Military Police in Stability Operations (1970); FM 30-31, 
Stability Operations—Intelligence (1970); and FM 31-73, Advisor 
Handbook for Stability Operations (1967), remained in effect into 
the 1980s, when the Army eventually issued new doctrine in the form 
of FM 100-20, Low Intensity Conflict (1981). Still, the lower profile 
accorded counterinsurgency throughout the Army’s doctrinal, train¬ 
ing, and educational establishments relegated the surviving doctrine 
to relative obscurity. 

The Army’s disinclination to issue new IDAD manuals after 
1975 meant that counterinsurgency doctrine would remain virtually 
unchanged in the postwar period. Several issues contributed to the deci¬ 
sion not to rewrite doctrine after the Vietnam War. A desire to forget the 
entire unhappy experience was one factor. So too was the policy shift 
away from foreign interventions, which lessened the urgency for mak¬ 
ing revisions. The fact that the Army had already incorporated some of 
the war’s lessons into doctrine prior to 1975 also reduced the need for 
change, while the perceived requirement to address pressing concerns 
in mid-intensity conflict redirected intellectual energy away from low 
intensity conflict. Last, change was impeded by the service’s belief that 
the existing doctrine was fundamentally sound and therefore not in 
need of a major overhaul. 

There were of course some attempts to derive lessons after 1975. 
At the Army War College, students and faculty alike examined the war 
with a critical eye. When a full-blown “lessons learned” study proved 
too much for the school to handle, the Army commissioned the BDM 
Corporation to provide such an analysis. The resulting eight-volume 
report criticized the way the Army and the nation had conducted the 
war, but it was so voluminous and arrived so late (1979) that it was 
relegated to virtual obscurity. A more influential, if controversial, 
study appeared in 1981, when Col. Harry G. Summers, Jr., published 
an interpretation of the war titled On Strategy: The Vietnam War in 
Context. Although the Army’s Strategic Studies Institute published the 
work, the book bore a disclaimer that it did not represent the views of 
the Department of the Army, and like the BDM study, it had no impact 
on published doctrine." 

The absence of any official post-Vietnam assessment did not mean, 
however, that soldiers were not influenced by the war or its outcome. 
While each individual held his or her own views regarding the war, sev¬ 
eral themes seemed to have resonated with large segments of the officer 
corps. First among these was an aversion for limited war theory, with 
its gamesmanship, gradual escalations, and piecemeal commitments 


483 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


of U.S. forces. More than anything else, for the Army the phrase “no 
more Vietnams” meant that the United States should never again seek 
to commit U.S. troops to combat without the full backing and support 
of the American people. 

The Vietnam experience left soldiers leery of politicians, resentful 
of civilian micromanagement and media criticism, and skeptical about 
employing military power to solve certain international problems. 
Interventions into the internal affairs of foreign nations had proved 
to be particularly thorny, full of hardship and frustration, with little 
personal or institutional reward. Unless vital national interests were 
at stake, few soldiers were anxious to enter into such briar patches 
again. 

If one had to intervene, U.S. soldiers preferred to do so earlier 
rather than later, before a situation had deteriorated out of hand. Once 
committed, they also wanted to deploy massive amounts of force to 
overwhelm the enemy as quickly and decisively as possible so as to 
pave the way for a rapid restoration of order and an early withdrawal of 
U.S. troops. Although they acknowledged the importance of political 
considerations, most soldiers wished to confine the Army’s activities 
to military and security measures, seasoned with some peripheral civic 
action and community relations programs, but leaving nation building 
to civilians. Finally, they wanted to operate under clear lines of com¬ 
mand, with a single authority capable of unifying the civil-military 
effort and establishing precise mission statements, concrete, achiev¬ 
able objectives, and a fixed exit strategy. Many of these conditions had 
appeared on previous wish lists, and not all of them were compatible 
with each other. Collectively, they represented a conservative approach 
to the exercise of military power in foreign policy. That these senti¬ 
ments were not incorporated formally into a manual did not make them 
any less real, and they would have just as much—if not more—impact 
on the exercise of American foreign and military policy over the com¬ 
ing decades as official doctrine. 14 

The Evolution of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Retrospect 

The role that counterinsurgency operations played in American 
strategic thought changed dramatically during the thirty-plus years that 
spanned the middle of the twentieth century. From relative obscurity 
in the 1940s, counterinsurgency quietly grew in stature until it erupted 
with much fanfare in the early 1960s as one of the central tenets of U.S. 
national security policy. The rapidity with which counterinsurgency 
made its ascent onto the policy stage in the early 1960s was matched 


484 



The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


only by the speed of its fall, as a disillusioned nation hastened to return 
it to the backwaters of strategic thought in the 1970s. 

While proponents of low intensity and nation-building operations 
decried counterinsurgency’s demise, shifts in emphasis were neither 
unreasonable nor unique. During the 1950s, President Eisenhower 
sought to avoid becoming directly involved in the internal conflicts of 
foreign nations. A cautious foreign policy, tightening defense budgets, 
and a philosophy of relying on the threat of massive nuclear retaliation 
to deter Communist aggression all inhibited the Army from devoting 
significant attention to counterinsurgency. Not until the later 1950s did 
Eisenhower begin to react to the threat posed by insurgencies and limit¬ 
ed wars. The Army responded as well, with modest steps to improve its 
ability to operate in “situations short of war.” When in 1961 President 
Kennedy inaugurated a new era of flexible response and foreign policy 
activism in the third world, the Army again responded, elevating coun¬ 
terinsurgency and nation-building doctrine to unprecedented heights. 
And when, under the direction of Presidents Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, 
the nation returned to a more limited, Euro-focused foreign policy, so 
too did the Army. These fluctuations were matched by changes in orga¬ 
nization and equipment, as the Army moved from conventional, World 
War II—style forces to nuclear-oriented Pentomic divisions and then 
finally to flexible ROAD divisions. The frequency of these changes 
was disruptive to the smooth development of doctrine and organiza¬ 
tion, but the adjustments attested to the Army’s willingness to conform 
to national policy." 

Although the Army continuously modified its doctrine and orga¬ 
nization to suit civilian policy directives, it steadfastly insisted on 
keeping one eye on what it regarded as its most important mission, 
the conduct of major conventional operations. Undoubtedly, the Army 
would have been better served had it consistently devoted more atten¬ 
tion to counterinsurgency and constabulary issues throughout the 
period, for the Army’s mission was and has always been multifaceted. 
Yet the nation’s military leaders also had to make hard judgments as 
to the allocation of resources, giving priority to those missions that 
seemed most pressing at the time. If the Army showed some reluctance 
to recast itself into a low intensity-oriented force, it had good reasons 
for its reservations. Not only had the nation not relieved the military 
of the burden of defending Western Europe and Korea, but many sol¬ 
diers and marines, including Generals Decker, Lemnitzer, Taylor, and 
Krulak, believed that the guerrilla threat was overblown. Despite the 
great fanfare given to Communist revolutionary warfare, only a hand¬ 
ful of countries would fall to Communist revolutions between 1945 


485 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 

and 1975. With the exception of China, none of these losses posed a 
significant, long-term threat to American political and economic inter¬ 
ests. Rather than heralding the dawn of a new era of warfare, wars of 
national liberation ultimately proved to be a flash in the pan. 16 

Just as counterinsurgency’s fortunes ebbed and flowed in conjunc¬ 
tion with the changing tides of national policy, so too did the content of 
doctrine evolve over the years. Initially, Army counterguerrilla doctrine 
focused on the threat partisans posed to rear echelon troops during a 
major war. Counterguerrilla warfare in this context was an adjunct to 
conventional operations, but one which the Army believed could not be 
ignored given historical precedent and contemporary Sino-Soviet doc¬ 
trine. This point of view continued until the late 1950s, when Western 
soldiers and statesmen increasingly recognized that the Communists 
might exploit the growing pains of the emerging nations of the third 
world to the West’s disadvantage. 

The Army was in the process of moving to meet this threat when 
President Kennedy launched a national crusade against wars of national 
liberation. At this point, third world insurgents replaced European par¬ 
tisans as the primary target of counterguerrilla doctrine. Similarly, the 
traditional military tactics of counterguerrilla warfare—which were 
being modified by the incorporation of recent experience and techno¬ 
logical innovation—were subsumed under a new rubric of counterin¬ 
surgency, in which socioeconomic and political considerations were 
accorded great weight. As the decade progressed, the amount of atten¬ 
tion doctrine paid to the noncombat aspects of irregular warfare—civil 
affairs, intelligence, and propaganda—steadily increased. Not only did 
civic action and nation building assume an ever greater role in military 
thought, but the nature of those activities evolved as well, reflecting 
both the results of experience and the changing hypotheses of the politi¬ 
cal and social theorists who provided the intellectual basis for much of 
American policy in the 1960s. 

In the emerging national security state, where the boundaries 
between political and military matters were increasingly blurred, civil¬ 
ian theorists, scientists, and policy makers like Walt Rostow, Robert 
McNamara, and Robert Osgood had an increasing effect on nearly every 
aspect of military affairs, from procurement to strategy. The limited war 
theory that guided much of America’s strategic thinking during the 
Vietnam War was the product of civilian intellectuals, and that counter¬ 
insurgency, a subject that involved an intimate intertwining of political 
and military action, should also reflect a heavy civilian influence was 
entirely understandable. Much of this influence was positive but not all 
of it. Although military doctrine traditionally represents the distillation 


486 






The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


of experience, much of what gave counterinsurgency its distinct flavor 
in the 1960s came from social science theories that, as George Ball, a 
State Department official in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, 
admitted, were “reeking of the lamp.” Based more on hypothesis and 
conjecture than on in-depth historical analysis, these theories burdened 
the nation and the Army with relatively untested, ahistorical premises. 
Among the assumptions that would ultimately prove flawed were that 
third world populations were thirsting for Western-style modernization, 
that economic development would inevitably squelch social discontent 
and produce more equitable societies, that more government interven¬ 
tion in local affairs was inherently preferable to less, that foreigners 
could adequately diagnose and readily correct another culture’s illness¬ 
es, that democracy was an exportable commodity, and that military and 
security matters were of lesser importance to defeating an insurgency 
than sociopolitical concerns. In the end, many of the assumptions and 
attributes of what was commonly referred to as the hearts-and-minds 
approach to insurgency often turned out to be overly optimistic or 
impractical. 17 

President Kennedy played a particularly prominent role in counter¬ 
insurgency’s turbulent history. He was largely responsible for pushing 
the Army to move counterinsurgency from the periphery to the center 
of military thought in an incredibly short period. He not only compelled 
the service to address the insurgency issue, but imbued both national 
policy and military doctrine with a self-assured, crusading spirit. The 
Army embraced this vision, informing its soldiers that “you are a cru¬ 
sader on the front of a new type of battlefield ... a battle for the minds 
of men.”' N 

While the champions of enlightened nation building were sincere 
in their beliefs, tactical considerations also colored their actions. For 
if idealism is deeply embedded in the American psyche, so too is iso¬ 
lationism, and Kennedy was well aware that the best way to energize 
the American public was to wrap his foreign policy prescriptions in 
the mantle of a moral crusade. Truman had done the same thing in 
the late 1940s, when he justified his aid program to Greece in terms 
of promoting reform and democracy abroad. Indeed, proponents of 
change frequently resort to hyperbole to justify their positions. This 
had been the case during the 1920s and 1930s, when the champions of 
strategic air power had attempted to win a place in the nation’s defense 
establishment by exaggerating the ability of aircraft to win wars, and 
the situation was no less true in the 1960s, as the proponents of coun¬ 
terinsurgency pushed their particular agenda. And, as in the case of 
air power, the broad declarations made by counterinsurgency theorists 


487 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


were aimed not just at the public and Congress, but at the bureaucracy, 
which the hearts-and-minds advocates believed needed to be prodded 
into institutionalizing the new creed. 

While such behavior was understandable on both human and 
political grounds, there were some drawbacks to Kennedy’s method. 
Presidential interest precipitated a flood of policy and doctrinal writ¬ 
ings as everyone rushed to jump on the counterinsurgency bandwagon. 
Unfortunately, not all of these writings were well thought out. Not only 
did this situation breed confusion, but it created a faddish, circus-like 
atmosphere. Soldiers were just as responsible as civilians for the ensu¬ 
ing state of affairs, as they generated new terms and acronyms with 
abandon. The consequence was that the emerging doctrine was both 
overblown and oversold. Proponents of the new doctrine presented a 
particularly rosy view of countering insurgency and building nations 
in which enlightened policies and good intentions would inevitably be 
more powerful than bullets. When these expectations proved difficult 
to fulfill, cynicism and disillusionment were the result. This disillusion¬ 
ment not only produced a backlash that helped undermine the war effort 
in Vietnam, but hastened the speed with which government institutions 
turned their backs on counterinsurgency in the early 1970sV 

Ironically, Kennedy’s drive to reorient government policy also suf¬ 
fered from the equivocal way in which he pursued his goals. On the one 
hand, his forcefulness alienated many civilian and military functionar¬ 
ies, who disliked “outsiders” meddling in what they regarded as techni¬ 
cal, professional matters. On the other hand, Kennedy failed to bring 
cohesion to the national crusade. The inability of the Kennedy and 
Johnson administrations to integrate the competing bureaucracies and 
disparate programs that contributed to America’s counterinsurgency 
and nation-building effort impeded the execution of American policy in 
the 1960s. The belated creation of Civil Operations and Revolutionary 
Development Support in Vietnam represented the nearest approxima¬ 
tion of the type of unity of effort that had long been a cardinal principle 
of Army doctrine, but even that entity was deeply resented by the civil¬ 
ian bureaucracies. Regarded as a temporary expedient for a desperate 
and unique situation, national policy makers did not formally embrace 
CORDS as a model for future civil-military endeavors. 

Another debatable decision was Kennedy’s inclination to treat 
counterinsurgency as something “special.” By attaching a certain mys¬ 
tique to insurgency and counterinsurgency, Kennedy sought to break 
the “business as usual” cycle and to generate extraordinary attention 
and effort. A corollary to this formulation was the president’s fascina¬ 
tion with elite forces. Kennedy’s mind-set, however, had the unfortunate 


488 


The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


effect of encouraging the Army to focus much of its initial effort on 
Special Forces. This approach was misguided because Special Forces 
had largely ignored counterinsurgency prior to 1961 and thus had no 
special knowledge of it. Moreover, the specialist mind-set tended to 
reinforce the attitude of many soldiers that counterinsurgency was not 
a mainline mission, but a unique function that could safely be shunted 
off to a small cadre of experts to handle. This not only undermined 
Kennedy’s larger goal of reorienting the Army as a whole, but relegated 
proponency for counterinsurgency to a small and bureaucratically weak 
element within the Army. 

President Kennedy and Army leaders created this predicament, 
but the decision of where to place responsibility for an activity that 
was at once unique yet also impacted all branches and every level of 
the Army was difficult. During the mid-1960s, Army Chief of Staff 
General Johnson tried to undo the harm that had been done by initially 
categorizing counterinsurgency as being “special.” His efforts to make 
counterinsurgency everyone’s business succeeded to an extent, but the 
organizational question would continue to bedevil the formulation and 
dissemination of counterinsurgency doctrine throughout the period. 

A final weakness of Kennedy’s method was that, by politicizing 
doctrine, he converted it into dogma. The president and his supporters 
tended to brand those who questioned the hearts-and-minds approach 
as unenlightened reactionaries whose opinions had no merit. This 
stifled debate and facilitated the adoption of policies based on what 
theorists wanted to see happen, rather than on a realistic appraisal of 
what was possible to achieve. 211 

An example of how dogmatic assertions created inflexibility can 
be seen in the realm of civil-military relations. One of the cardinal 
tenets of counterinsurgency theory as it emerged in the 1960s was 
that insurgency was an inherently political, as opposed to military, 
activity. One corollary of this principle was that civilians and politics 
should predominate over soldiers and military considerations in every 
instance. While the importance of political factors in an internal con¬ 
flict was indisputable, adhering to a rigid prioritization of roles was 
neither always possible nor desirable. Civilian officials were frequently 
incapable of acting in a coherent, unified fashion, while civilian agen¬ 
cies often lacked the resources to carry out their programs. A civil- 
first approach also did not necessarily mesh with the governments the 
United States was attempting to assist, particularly if they were domi¬ 
nated by soldiers or had weak civil administrations. Moreover, although 
political primacy made sense during the early phases of an insurgency, 
once a rebellion began in earnest, accomplishing socioeconomic and 


489 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


political goals without first achieving security through military opera¬ 
tions often proved impractical. Whether in Greece, Vietnam, or even 
the Philippines, experience demonstrated that military and security 
considerations were often as important as political matters in success¬ 
ful counterinsurgency operations. By asserting political primacy as an 
iron-clad rule, however, hearts-and-minds advocates created a doc¬ 
trinaire mind-set for what should have been a dynamic and flexible 
relationship. 

While Army doctrine during the 1960s took on a distinctive flavor 
that reflected the intellectual tenor of the day, what is perhaps most 
remarkable is how little Army doctrine actually changed during the 
thirty-five tumultuous years covered by this book. This continuity was 
particularly strong with regard to the military aspects of counterguer¬ 
rilla warfare. From the beginning, Army doctrine set three fundamental 
tasks for the counterinsurgent: separating the people physically and 
spiritually from the guerrillas, separating the guerrillas from external 
sources of support, and destroying the insurgents. The first objective 
was to be achieved by an adroit combination of military, police, intel¬ 
ligence, propaganda, population- and resources-control, and sociopo¬ 
litical measures, while the last two tasks were primarily military in 
nature. 

Operationally, American doctrine throughout the period called 
for commanders to establish geographical commands, usually based 
on political boundaries so as to facilitate politico-military coordina¬ 
tion. Once deployed, security forces were to remain in a region as 
long as necessary to pacify the area, a method based on the belief that 
prolonged service in one area enhanced operations by making com¬ 
manders more familiar with the local topography, both physical and 
political. After establishing close relations with the local political and 
police apparatus, commanders were to wage an aggressive campaign 
of patrol, raid, and attack with an eye toward driving the guerrillas 
away from the civilian population, destroying their bases, and wearing 
them down. As the insurgent threat diminished, military units would 
break down into progressively smaller units to maintain the pressure. 
Meanwhile, government authorities were to raise paramilitary forces 
and purge communities of subversive elements until a level of security 
and control had been achieved sufficient to permit the regular units to 
be removed to another locale, where they would repeat the process. 
Flexibility, adaptability, mobility, intelligence, surprise, security, per¬ 
severance, and continuous, offensive operations were the creed that 
guided all Army doctrinal writings. Although manuals maintained that 
some form of encirclement represented the best chance of bringing 


490 


The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


guerrillas to decisive battle, they never elevated a single operational 
technique, recognizing that both large-unit and small-unit actions had 
their place under the appropriate circumstances. Aggressive, small-unit 
infantry action, however, formed the basis of all tactical doctrine, a phi¬ 
losophy that remained unchanged until the mid-1960s, when the danger 
attendant to rooting out a lethal, well-organized, and deeply entrenched 
foe led Army leaders to partially reverse the roles of fire and maneuver 
in Vietnam. 

All of this did not mean that Army doctrine did not change. 
Throughout the period, the advent of new technologies, most notably 
in the area of aviation, together with lessons derived from experience 
and foreign example, led the service to adjust its doctrine, especially at 
the tactical and technical levels. But few of these developments radi¬ 
cally altered the basic precepts and overarching concepts of American 
counterguerrilla doctrine. 

Part of the reason why Army counterguerrilla doctrine remained 
fundamentally unchanged during this period was that much of it was 
written in general terms. Manuals established guiding principles and 
concepts, but seldom imposed ironclad rules. This was a practical 
approach that, if some found unsatisfying, did at least endow soldiers 
with a flexible instrument. 

An equally important factor in the durability of Army counter¬ 
guerrilla doctrine, however, was the fact that the essential nature of 
irregular warfare was itself relatively unchanging. Guerrilla move¬ 
ments differed profoundly from each other with respect to size, 
organization, tactics, and armament, as did the political, social, and 
topographical milieus in which they occurred. Each case required a 
unique and tailored response. Nevertheless, most insurgencies shared 
certain fundamental characteristics. By taking such characteristics into 
account and by writing doctrine at a broad, conceptual level, the Army 
succeeded in producing a doctrine that remained useful under a wide 
variety of circumstances despite the passage of time. That this was 
true belied the assertions made by some counterinsurgency proponents 
that modern insurgency was so different from past insurgencies as to 
make the study of those earlier events irrelevant. In fact, many of the 
concepts that the Army passed off as “new” doctrine to meet the threat 
posed by Communist revolutionary warfare in the 1960s were just 
recycled versions of doctrine that had been written a decade earlier 
based on Volckmann’s analysis of partisan and counter-partisan activi¬ 
ties in World War II. The reappearance in subsequent texts of ideas that 
had first appeared in FM 31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces 
(1951), attested to the value of that original, pre-Maoist doctrine. 


491 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


American experiences and lessons derived from Chinese, French, and 
British activities refined, but never replaced, the Army’s initial con¬ 
cepts. Thus the counterinsurgency doctrine that emerged in the 1960s 
was neither an entirely new product nor simply a case of old wine in a 
new bottle. Rather, it represented a blend of old and new wine—refor¬ 
mulated and repackaged—but retaining much of the fundamental 
characteristics of the original ingredients. 

Just as there was much continuity with regard to the military aspects 
of counterguerrilla operations, a similar situation existed in relation to 
pacification and the many civil aspects of irregular warfare. Despite 
some assertions to the contrary, Army doctrine had always recognized 
that political factors loomed large in counterguerrilla warfare. Since 
military action was the service’s primary responsibility, it was upon 
this that the manuals focused. But the manuals never lost sight of the 
fact that irregular conflicts often originated from and were sustained by 
the local population, and that consequently the best way to eliminate a 
rebellion was to redress the political, social, and economic conditions 
that spawned and perpetuated it. Principles established by Volckmann’s 
1951 manual included the notions that preventing an insurgency was 
easier than countering it, that governments should enact policies 
designed to redress the causes of unrest, and that soldiers should con¬ 
duct themselves with propriety and decorum when interacting with 
civilians. From the beginning, Army doctrine called for the formulation 
of closely integrated plans that took into account the unique politi¬ 
cal, military, social, economic, and geographical circumstances of the 
theater of operations. These principles were not the product of some 
Maoist analysis, rather they were based on long-standing traditions 
of international law and military government. They were also deeply 
rooted in a myriad of pacification and civil affairs activities dating 
back to the founding of the Republic, experiences that the Army first 
formalized in a doctrinal way in General Orders 100 of 1863. For over 
a century U.S. forces had been governed by an official creed that held 
that the purpose of war was peace and that soldiers had a duty to ame¬ 
liorate the hardships that war inevitably imposed on civilians. General 
Johnson deliberately tapped into that tradition when he cited General 
Orders 100 as the basis for his concept of stability operations. 21 

While Army doctrine embraced a general policy of moderation, 
it also recognized—as had General Orders 100 and most subsequent 
Army writings—that good deeds alone would not suppress a deter¬ 
mined insurrection. No matter how appealing, redressing civilian 
grievances in a meaningful way was not always possible. Reforms 
did not necessarily appeal to many hard core revolutionaries, whose 


492 





The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


true goals were often neither altruistic nor open to compromise. Since 
irregulars could not survive without some form of civilian cooperation 
and since positive acts were not always sufficient to prevent a hostile or 
neutral population from aiding the guerrillas, Army doctrine had long 
maintained that coercion was an indispensable element in combating 
an insurrection. Although the service shied away from such unsavory 
tactics as torture and terror, it embraced all those means sanctioned by 
international and military law to control people’s behavior and restrict 
their ability to aid and abet the guerrillas. These included curfews; 
censorship; detention and prosecution (subject to legal proceedings); 
restrictions over the movement and possession of food, medicine, weap¬ 
ons, and other supplies useful to the guerrillas; the destruction of cover 
and crops used by irregulars; and, in extreme cases, retaliation. Army 
regulations also embraced long-standing principles of international law 
that denied many guerrillas and their supporters the status of legitimate 
belligerents, though in practice the military frequently afforded mufti- 
clad combatants some status in an effort to avoid having a conflict 
descend into a profitless cycle of retaliation and murder. Finally, the 
Army embraced resettlement in those cases where there was no other 
way either to protect the local population or sever its cooperation with 
the guerrillas, though this practice was never accorded a central place 
in American doctrine. 

The Army characterized this carrot-and-stick policy as being firm 
but fair, a nineteenth-century formulation that the Army would contin¬ 
ue to apply to all of its military government, civil affairs, counterguer¬ 
rilla, and pacification programs during the twentieth century. It was a 
difficult policy to carry out, since there were few prescribed boundar¬ 
ies as to the degree to which commanders were to rely on persuasion 
versus coercion. If this was a fault of doctrine, it was a deliberate one, 
as Army doctrine writers believed that to delineate a fixed relationship 
that would be equally valid in every circumstance would be counterpro¬ 
ductive, if not impossible. As a result, attraction and coercion would sit 
uneasily side by side in the pages of American manuals. 

One of the biggest impacts that the hearts-and-minds philosophy 
had on doctrine in the 1960s was to shift the delicate balance between 
persuasion and punishment in favor of the former. The change reflected 
both the philosophical predisposition of many theorists as well as 
an increasing intolerance in both international law and world public 
opinion for actions against civilians. Army doctrine reflected these 
concerns, adopting additional admonitions as to the importance of 
good troop conduct and using discretion when employing firepower 
or imposing restrictive measures. But the tension between force and 


493 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


persuasion remained unabated, as experience continued to demon¬ 
strate that repressive steps were often necessary to overcome deeply 
entrenched guerrilla movements. Consequently, while Army manuals 
became more effusive about the benefits of the “positive program, 11 
they refused to abandon the many practical, if unpleasant, restrictive 
measures that had proved useful in the past. This approach created 
some confusion and much criticism. Hearts-and-minds sloganeering 
further exacerbated the situation by unduly raising expectations about 
the power of purely positive acts to resolve internecine conflicts with a 
minimum of unpleasantness. Practical experience, however, repeatedly 
demonstrated that such expectations were unjustified. 

While there were many soldiers who either felt uncomfortable with 
nation-building activities or who rejected assertions made by Kennedy 
and others that the Army had to be completely overhauled to perform 
overseas counterinsurgency functions effectively, there was surprisingly 
little resistance within the Army to the central tenets of the moderniza¬ 
tion theory. For the most part soldiers readily accepted Rostow’s concepts 
as well as the other nation-building theories developed by academics. 
In part, this was because many of these theories were deeply rooted in 
the American psyche. Despite assertions that the United States was not 
going to try to recast societies in its own image, the fact of the matter was 
that most Americans defined modernization in terms of producing more 
industrial, capitalistic, educated, “liberal,” secular, urban, democratic, 
and socially equitable societies. In short, modernization and nation build¬ 
ing looked suspiciously like Westernization, a process that, if taken to 
conclusion, would produce societies similar to our own. 

The counterinsurgency-modernization impulse of the 1960s thus 
reflected a complex blend of forces that had long characterized 
American political life—idealism, progressivism, and ethnocentrism. 
It also resonated with contemporary American thinking about the role 
of government in a modern society. Initiatives like the Alliance for 
Progress, civic action, and other nation-building initiatives were the 
foreign policy equivalents of President Johnson’s “Great Society” pro¬ 
grams of the 1960s, which employed big government activism to attack 
at home many of the very same problems—such as racism, unemploy¬ 
ment, poverty, ignorance, and malnutrition—that third world nations 
were experiencing, albeit on a different order of magnitude. Ultimately, 
U.S. soldiers accepted the “ideology of modernization” because it 
represented both their cultural heritage and the current mores of their 
society, a society of which they were very much a part. 22 

This phenomenon was not unique to the 1960s. For nearly a century 
U.S. soldiers had been approaching overseas pacification and con- 


494 




The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


stabulary operations in much the same way. Whether in Cuba and the 
Philippines in 1900, Greece in 1947, or Vietnam in 1967, U.S. soldiers 
had gravitated toward a general program of improved public educa¬ 
tion, economic development, political democracy, and moderate social 
reform to uplift foreign peoples and quell unrest. Though the specifics 
of each program varied according to the spirit of the times and the situ¬ 
ation and people involved, the extent to which these themes reappeared 
time after time merely reaffirms the notion that deep-seated cultural 
and intellectual forces were at play, guiding successive generations of 
U.S. soldiers as they went about implementing their nation-building, 
pacification, and constabulary duties. 

If this factor helps explain the readiness with which U.S. soldiers 
accepted many of the precepts of 1960s nation-building and counterin¬ 
surgency theory, it also demonstrates the durability of those concepts 
in postwar doctrine. Despite the general aversion that soldiers and 
civilians alike exhibited toward undertaking constabulary and pacifica¬ 
tion missions after Vietnam, doctrine for meeting those contingencies 
would remain virtually unchanged. 23 

The counterinsurgency era thus bequeathed the post-Vietnam 
Army an ambiguous legacy. On the one hand, some of the more 
extreme promises and assumptions that had been made with regard to 
the political and social aspects of counterinsurgency and nation build¬ 
ing had turned out to be either wrong, misguided, or unobtainable. In 
most cases the United States and its allies had succeeded in defeating 
Communist insurgents without achieving the profound socioeconomic 
reforms that some theorists had believed were essential for victory. Nor 
had American notions of modernization been a panacea for foreign 
instability. On the other hand, many of the old principles upon which 
American counterguerrilla doctrine had been based had generally 
proved to be valid. To the extent that Army manuals of the early 1970s 
preserved these principles, they would provide useful insights for future 
doctrine writers and practitioners should the United States once again, 
as it had done so many times over the past two hundred years, call upon 
its uniformed men and women to perform counterguerrilla, constabu¬ 
lary, and pacification missions abroad. 


495 


Notes 


1 Blaufarb, Counterinsurgency Era, pp. 288-89, 292; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms , p. 
89; Peter Kafkalas, “Low Intensity Conflict and Today’s U.S. Army: An Assessment” 
(Master’s thesis, Harvard University, 1984), pp. 14, 51; Thomas Adams, “Military 
Doctrine and the Organization Culture of the U.S. Army” (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse 
University, 1990), pp. 445-46. 

2 Quote from H. Heymann and W. W. Whitson, Can and Should the United States 
Preserve a Military Capability for Revolutionary Conflict? R-940-ARPA (Santa 
Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1972), p. 65, and see also pp. 1-2, 22, 45, 54-57, 70-71, 80, 
92-95. 

3 Quotes from Ricky Waddell, “The Army and Peacetime Low Intensity Conflict, 
1961-1993: The Process of Peripheral and Fundamental Military Change” (Ph.D. diss., 
Columbia University, 1994), p. 193, and see also pp. 194, 212-13. Kafkalas, “Low 
Intensity Conflict,” p. 14; Donald Vought, “Preparing for the Wrong War?” Military 
Review 57 (May 1977): 21-23. 

4 Martin Massoglia et al., Military Civic Action, Evaluation of Military Techniques 
(Research Triangle Institute, 1971), 2:111-21, III-22; Ltr, Kinnard, CDC, to Fred 
Wolcott, Vice President, Research Analysis Corporation, 2 Jun 69, 73A2678, RG 338, 
NARA; Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry , p. 196; John Waghelstein, “Post-Vietnam 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” Military Review 65 (June 1985): 46; Adams, “Military 
Doctrine,” p. 447; Waddell, “The Army and Low Intensity Conflict,” p. 199. 

5 Quotes from Memo, Brig Gen William R. Bond, Actg Dir, International and 
Civil Affairs, ODCSOPS, for Vice Chief of Staff, 25 Aug 69, sub: Visit to the JFK 
Center for Military Assistance, Historians files, CMH. Draft Study, CDC Special 
Operations Agency, 19 Apr 73, The Civil-Military Operations Study, pp. 2-15, 2-16, 
Historians files, CMH; Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1972 
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1974), p. 23; Department of 
the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1973 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 
of Military History, 1977), p. 73; Counterinsurgency or Stability Operations Training, 
pp. 11-12, atch to Summary Sheet, Lt Gen Richard Stilwell, DCSOPS, to CSA, 10 Oct 
69, sub: Counterinsurgency or Stability Operations Training, 73-0124, RG 319, NARA; 
Memo, Maj Gen William Knowlton, SGS, for DCSOPS et al., 17 Nov 69, sub: Internal 
Defense and Development (IDD)/Counterinsurgency and Stability Operations Training, 
73-0127, RG 319, NARA. 

6 Quote from USCONARC History, Fiscal Year 1972, p. 482, and see also p. 514, 
copy in CMH. Gillespie, Sergeants Major of the Army, p. 120. 

7 The Army rescinded ASubjScd 7-12, Anti-Infiltration and Counterguerrilla 
Training, 9 Apr 68 in June 1976. The evolution of Army aggressor manuals illustrates 
the trends in training. In 1973 the Army discontinued its first all-guerrilla aggressor 
manual, FM 30-104, Handbook on Aggressor Insurgent War, 1967, merging it back 
into a new edition of FM 30-102, Handbook on Aggressor. Though largely oriented 
toward conventional operations, the new manual still discussed insurgent warfare. 
By 1977, however, the irregular warfare segment was reduced to just a few pages on 
Soviet-style partisans as the Army replaced the 1973 training manual with a new ver¬ 
sion, FM 30-102, Aggressor Forces Europe, that focused exclusively on the European 


496 


The Counterinsurgency Legacy 


theater. USCONARC History, Fiscal Year 1972, pp. 523-24; Kafkalas, “Low Intensity 
Conflict,” p. 98. 

Quote from Counterinsurgency or Stability Operations Training, p. 5, atch to 
Summary Sheet, Stilwell to CSA, 10 Oct 69, sub: Counterinsurgency or Stability 
Operations Training. 

4 First quote from Memo, Brig Gen Michael Greene, Dep Commandant, AWC, for 
Commandant, AWC, 19 May 69, sub: Final Report, Course 5, Stability Operations, 
AY 69, in Stability Operations, Course 5, Course of Instruction, Final Report, AWC, 
1968/69. Second quote from Stability Operations, Course 4, Course of Instruction, Final 
Report, AWC, 1969/70, p. 3. Third quote from AWC, Final Report Military Strategy 
Seminar, Academic Year 1972, MHI. AWC Curriculum Pamphlets, 1969-1975. All in 
MHI. Ball, Of Responsible Command , p. 449; POI files, 1974, USMA, Office of Military 
Instruction, Department of Tactics, USMA Archives; Vought, “Preparing for the Wrong 
War?” p. 30; Historical Supplement, 1974, U.S. Army Infantry School, 1975, pp. 16, 22, 
copy in CMH; POI 2-7-C22, Infantry School, Infantry Officer Advanced Course, Sep 
75; Memo, IMA, 4 Mar 74, sub: Internal Defense and Development (IDAD) Training 
at the United States Army Infantry School (USAIS), Fort Benning, Ga., pp. 1-2, 18-22, 
Historians files, CMH; Michael Pearlman, “The Fall and Rise of Low-Intensity Conflict 
Doctrine and Instruction,” Military Review 68 (September 1988): 78. 

10 POI 2E-F8, IMA, Special Forces Officer Course, Aug 73; POI 2E-F8, IMA, 
Special Forces Officer Course, Apr 75; POI 7b-F3, IMA, Foreign Area Officer Course, 
Jun 77; IMA Pam 350-6, Precis of Courses, Jun 75. All in 85-0301, RG 338, NARA. 

11 First quote from FM 100-5, Operations of the Army in the Field , 1968, p. 1-6. 
Second and third quotes from FM 100-5, Operations, 1976, p. 1-1, and see also p. 1-2. 
Paul Herbert, Deciding What Has To Be Done: General William E. DePuy and the 1976 
Edition of FM 100-5, Operations (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 
1988), pp. 6-7, 99-100. 

12 Sheehan, “Preparing for an Imaginary War, Examining Peacetime Functions and 
Changes of Army Doctrine” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1988), pp. 175-76, 181, 
199. 

13 Harry Summers, “The United States Army’s Institutional Response to Vietnam,” 
in Proceedings of the 1982 International Military History Symposium: “The Impact of 
Unsuccessful Military Campaigns on Military Institutions, 1860-1980,” ed. Charles 
Shrader (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1984), pp. 300-301; 
M. J. Brady, “The Army and the Strategic Military Legacy of Vietnam” (Master’s thesis, 
CGSC, 1990), pp. 60-61, 215-16, 222; Harry Summers, On Strategy: The Vietnam War 
in Context (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, 1981). 

14 Petraeus, “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam,” pp. i-iii, 34, 104, 
128-31, 135, 258-59, 300-302. 

15 Kafkalas, “Low Intensity Conflict,” p. 14; Doughty, Army Tactical Doctrine, p. 
47. 

16 Packenham, Liberal America, pp. 16, 184; Shy and Collier, “Revolutionary War,” in 
Makers of Modern Strategy, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 
1986), p. 860; Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp. 2, 6, 8; Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, p. 130; Stephen 
Bowman, “The Evolution of United States Army Doctrine for Counterinsurgency 
Warfare: From World War II to the Commitment of Combat Units in Vietnam” (Ph.D. 
diss., Duke University, 1985), pp. 5-6, 85, 121, 134, 177-78, 193; Waddell, “The Army 
and Low Intensity Conflict,” p. 141. 


497 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


1 Quote from Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, p. 129. Shy and Collier, “Revolutionary 
War,” pp. 818-19; Packenham, Liberal America, pp. 67-68, 242-86; Shafer, Deadly 
Paradigms, pp. 66-69, 126; Massoglia et al., Military Civic Action, pp. v-vii, VIII-1 
thru VIII-8; Latham, Modernization as Ideology, pp. 5-7, 66, 211. 

18 Quote from Counterinsurgency 1, Infantry Career Course 313, Infantry School, Oct 
64, p. 1, Infantry School Library. 

19 Paddy Griffith, Forward into Battle: Fighting Tactics from Waterloo to Vietnam 
(Chichester, England: Anthony Bird, 1981), pp. 7-8; Wiarda, Ethnocentrism in Foreign 
Policy, p. 6; Packenham, Liberal America, pp. xix-xx. 

20 James Johnson, “People’s War and Conventional Armies,” Military Review 54 
(January 1974): 27; DePauw and Luz, Winning the Peace, pp. 135-36; Shafer, Deadly 
Paradigms , p. 227; Latham, Modernization as Ideology, pp. 71, 197. 

21 Speech, “U.S. Army and Future Strategy,” Johnson at AWC, 25 May 65, pp. 1-2, 
MHI. 

22 Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 3-4,280; Richard Sutter, “The Strategic Implications 
of Military Civic Action,” in DePauw and Luz, Winning the Peace, pp. 133-38; Wiarda, 
Ethnocentrism in Foreign Policy, pp. 9-10, 23. Quote from Latham, Modernization as 
Ideology, p. 71, and see also pp. 93, 214. 

23 Packenham, Liberal America, pp. 6, 18-21, 253; Shafer, Deadly Paradigms, pp. 
49-50, 79; Wiarda, Ethnocentrism in Foreign Policy, p. 5. 


498 


Select Bibliography 


The extensive number of materials used makes a complete bibli¬ 
ography impossible. The following is a listing of the most important 
sources consulted. 


Archival Sources 

Carlisle Barracks, Pa. U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI). 
Army War College (AWC) student papers and curricular materials. 
MACV collection. 

Military document collection. 

Personal papers and manuscript collections of Adams, Paul D.; 
Almond, Edward M.; Brown, Rothwell H.; DePuy, William 
E.; Johnson, Harold K.; Lee, Richard M.; Lindquist, Roy E.; 
Livesay, William G.; Palmer, Bruce, Jr.; Peers, William R.; 
Powell, Herbert B.; Ridgway, Matthew B.; Rosson, William 
B.; Van Fleet, James A.; Ward, Orlando; Williams, Samuel T.; 
Yarborough, William P. 

Fort Benning, Ga. Infantry School. Student papers and curricular 
materials. 

Fort Bragg, N.C. Special Warfare School. Curricular materials and 
history office files. 

Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Command and General Staff College (CGSC). 

Student papers and curricular materials. 

Washington, D.C. National Archives and Records Administration 
(NARA). 

Record Group (RG) 59, Records of the Department of State. 

RG 218, Records of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

RG 273, Records of the National Security Council. 

RG 319, Records of the Army Staff. 

RG 332, Records of the United States Theaters of War, World War 
II. 

RG 334, Records of Interservice Agencies. 

RG 335, Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Army. 

RG 337, Records of Headquarters Army Ground Forces. 

RG 338, Records of United States Army Commands. 

RG 472, Records of the United States Army, Vietnam. 


499 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Washington, D.C. National Security Archives. Low Intensity Conflict 
Document Archives. 

Washington, D.C. U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH). 
Historical Reference Collection. 

William C. Westmoreland papers. 

West Point, N.Y. U.S. Military Academy (USMA). Curricular 
materials. 


Published Primary Sources 

The Declassified Documents Reference System. Woodbridge, Conn.: 
Research Publications, 1986-1996. 

The Declassified Documents Retrospective Collection. Washington, 
D.C.: Carrollton Press, 1976. 

Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS]. 
Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970-1996. 

_. United States Relations with China. Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 1949. 

Marshalls Mission to China, December 1945-January 1947: The 
Report and Appended Documents. 2 vols. Arlington, Va.: University 
Publishers of America, 1976. 

The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United 
States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. Senator Gravel Edition, 4 vols. 
Boston: Beacon Press, 1971-1972. 

United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967: Study Prepared by 
Department of Defense. 12 vols. Washington, D.C.: Government 
Printing Office, 1971. 

U.S. Army Field Manuals (FM), by Number 

1-100, Army Aviation, 1963 

6-20, Field Artillery Tactics and Operations , 1973 

6-20-1, Field Artillery Tactics , 1961 

6-20-1, Field Artillery Tactics , 1965 

6-20-2, Field Artillery Techniques , 1962 

6- 20-2, Field Artillery Techniques , 1970 

7- 10, Rifle Company, Infantry and Airborne Division Battle Groups , 
1959 

7-10, Rifle Company, Infantry and Airborne Battle Groups , 1962 
7-10, The Rifle Company, Platoons, and Squads , 1970 
7-11, Rifle Company, Infantry, Airborne Infantry, and Mechanized 
Infantry , 1962 


500 



Select Bibliography 


7-11, Rifle Company, Infantry, Airborne, and Mechanized , 1965 
7-15, Infantry, Airborne Infantry, and Mechanized Infantry Rifle 
Platoons and Squads, 1962 

7-15, Rifle Platoon and Squads: Infantry, Airborne, and Mechanized, 
1965 

7-17, The Armored Infantry Company and Battalion , 1951 
7-20, Infantry, Airborne Infantry, and Mechanized Infantry Battalions, 
1962 

7-20, Infantry, Airborne Infantry, and Mechanized Infantry Battalions , 
1965 

7-20, The Infantry Battalions, 1969 

7-30, Infantry, Airborne, and Mechanized Division Brigades , 1962 

7-30, Infantry, Airborne, and Mechanized Division Brigades , 1965 

7-30, The Infantry Brigades, 1969 

7-40, Infantry and Airborne Division Battle Groups, 1959 

7-100, Infantry Division, 1958 

7-100, Infantry Division, 1960 

17—1, Armor Operations—Small Units, 1957 

17—1, Armor Operations, 1963 

17—1, Armor Operations, 1966 

17-15, Tank Units, Platoon, Company, and Battalion, 1966 

17-30, The Armored Division Brigade, 1961 

17-30, The Armored Brigade, 1969 

17-95, The Armored Cavalry Regiment, 1966 

17—100, The Armored Division and Combat Command, 1958 

19-50, Military Police in Stability Operations, 1970 

21-50, Ranger Training, 1957 

21-50, Ranger Training and Ranger Operations, 1962 
21—75, Combat Training of the Individual Soldier and Patrolling, 
1957 

21-75, Combat Training of the Individual Soldier and Patrolling, 
1962 

21-75, Combat Training of the Individual Soldier and Patrolling, 
1967 

27-5, United States Army and Navy Manual of Military Government 
and Civil Affairs, 1943 

27-5, United States Army and Navy Manual of Civil Affairs Military 
Government, 1947 

27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, 1956 
30-5, Combat Intelligence, 1960 
30-5, Combat Intelligence, 1963 
30-5, Combat Intelligence, 1967 


501 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


30-5, Combat Intelligence, 1971 
30-5, Combat Intelligence, 1973 
30-17, Counterintelligence Operations, 1968 
30-17, Counterintelligence Operations, 1972 
30-17A, Counterintelligence Special Operations, 1973 
30-31, Stability Operations — Intelligence, 1970 
30-101, Aggressor, The Maneuver Enemy, 1959 
30-101, Aggressor, The Maneuver Enemy, 1961 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor Military Forces, 1950 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor Military Forces, 1951 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor Military Forces, 1959 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor Military Forces, 1960 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor Military Forces, 1963 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor Military Forces, 1966 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor Military Forces, 1969 
30-102, Handbook on Aggressor, 1973 
30-102, Opposing Forces Europe, 1977 
30-104, Aggressor Representation, 1952 
30-104, Aggressor Representation, 1953 

30- 104, Handbook on Aggressor Insurgent War, 1967 

31- 5, Psychological Warfare in Combat Operations, 1949 
31-10, Barriers and Denial Operations, 1962 

31-10, Denial Operations and Barriers, 1968 

31-15, Operations Against Airborne Attack, Guerrilla Action, and 
Infiltration, 1953 

31-15, Operations Against Irregular Forces, 1961 

31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1963 

31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1967 

31-18, Long Range Patrols, 1962 

31-18, Infantry Long Range Patrol Company, 1965 

31-18, Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol Company, 1968 

31-20, Jungle Warfare, 1941 

31-20, Operations Against Guerrilla Forces, 1951 

31-20, Special Forces Operational Techniques, 1965 

31-20, Special Forces Operational Techniques, 1971 

31-21, Organization and Conduct of Guerrilla Warfare, 1951 

31-21, Guerrilla Warfare, 1955 

31-21, Guerrilla Warfare and Special Forces Operations, 1958 
31-21, Guerrilla Warfare and Special Forces Operations, 1961 
31-21, Special Forces Operations, 1965 
31-21, Special Forces Operations — US. Army Doctrine, 1969 
31-21, Special Forces Operations — US. Army Doctrine, 1974 


502 


Select Bibliography 


31-22, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Forces, 1963 

31-23, Stability Operations: U.S. Army Doctrine , 1967 

31—23, Stability Operations: U.S. Army Doctrine , 1972 

31-30, Jungle Operations , 1960 

31-30, Jungle Training and Operations , 1965 

31-35, Jungle Operations , 1969 

31-50, Combat in Fortified and Built-Up Areas, 1964 

31-55 (Test), Border Security/Anti-Infiltration Operations , 1968 

31-55, Border Security/Anti-Infiltration Operations , 1972 

31—73, Advisor Handbook for Counterinsurgency , 1965 

31-73, Advisor Handbook for Stability Operations , 1967 

31-75 (Test), Riverine Operations , 1968 

31—75, Riverine Warfare , 1971 

31-81 (Test), Base Defense, 1970 

31-85, Rear Area Protection Operations, 1970 

33-\, Psychological Operations — U.S. Army Doctrine, 1971 

33— 1, Psychological Operations, 1979 

33-5, Psychological Warfare in Combat Operations, 1949 

33-5, Psychological Warfare Operations, 1955 

33-5, Psychological Operations, 1962 

33-5, Psychological Operations—Techniques and Procedures, 1966 

33-5, Psychological Operations—Techniques and Procedures, 1974 

41-5, Joint Manual of Civil Affairs/Military Government, 1958 

41-5, Joint Manual for Civil Affairs, 1966 

41-10, Civil Affairs Military Government Operations, 1957 

41-10, Civil Affairs Operations, 1962 

41-10, Civil Affairs Operations, 1967 

41-10, Civil Affairs Operations, 1969 

57-35, Airmobile Operations, 1963 

61-100, The Division, 1962 

61-100, The Division, 1965 

61-100, The Division, 1968 

90-8, Counterguerrilla Operations, 1986 

100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, 1941 

100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, 1944 

100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, 1949 

100-5, Field Service Regulations, Operations, 1954 

100-5, Field Service Regulations — Operations, 1962 

100—5, Operations of Army Forces in the Field, 1968 

100-5, Operations, 1976 

100-15, Larger Units, Theater Army-Corps, 1968 
100-20, Field Service Regulations, Counterinsurgency, 1964 


503 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


100-20, Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and Development , 
1967 

100—20, Field Service Regulations: Internal Defense and Development , 
1972 

100-20, Internal Defense and Development, US. Army Doctrine , 
1974 

100-20, Low Intensity Conflict , 1981 

Dissertations 

Adams, Thomas. “Military Doctrine and the Organization Culture of 
the U.S. Army.” Syracuse University, 1990. 

Avant, Deborah. “The Institutional Sources of Military Doctrine: The 
United States in Vietnam and Britain in the Boer War and Malaya.” 
University of California, San Diego, 1991. 

Best, Randolph. “A Doctrine of Counterinsurgency.” University of 
South Carolina, 1973. 

Bohman, Eric. “Rehearsals for Victory: The War Department and the 
Planning and Direction of Civil Affairs, 1940-43.” Yale University, 
1984. 

Bowman, Stephen. “The Evolution of United States Army Doctrine for 
Counterinsurgency Warfare: From World War II to the Commitment 
of Combat Units in Vietnam.” Duke University, 1985. 

Carter, Donald. “From G.I. to Atomic Soldier: The Development of 
U.S. Army Tactical Doctrine, 1945-1956.” Ohio State University, 
1987. 

Dawkins, Peter. “The U.S. Army and the ‘Other’ War in Vietnam: A 
Study of the Complexity of Implementing Organizational Change.” 
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 1979. 

Dow, Maynard. “Counterinsurgency and Nation-Building: A 
Comparative Study of Post-World War II Antiguerrilla Resettlement 
Programs in Malaya, the Philippines, and South Vietnam.” Syracuse 
University, 1965. 

Gray, David. “Black and Gold Warriors: United States Army Rangers 
During the Korean War.” Ohio State University, 1992. 

Greenberg, David. “The United States Response to Philippine 
Insurgency.” Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 
1994. 

Kraemer, Joseph. “The Theory and Practice of Little War.” University 
of Michigan, 1969. 

Mclntire, Anthony. “The American Soldier in Vietnam.” University of 
Kentucky, 1996. 


504 


Select Bibliography 


Marquis, Jefferson. “The ‘Other War’: An Intellectual History of 
American Nationbuilding in South Vietnam, 1954-1975.” Ohio 
State University, 1997. 

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Khuyen, Dong Van. The RVNAF. Indochina Monographs. Washington, 
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Mossman, Billy. Ebb and Flow, November 1950-July 1951. United 
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Wolfe, Robert, ed. Americans as Proconsuls: United States Military 
Government in Germany and Japan, 1944-1952. Carbondale: 
Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. 

Wolpin, Miles. Military Aid and Counterrevolution in the Third World. 
Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1972. 


516 


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Wyatt, David. Thailand: A Short History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale 
University Press, 1984. 

Yates, Lawrence. “A Feather in Their Cap? The Marines Combined 
Action Program in Vietnam.” In New Interpretations in Naval 
History , edited by William Roberts and Jack Sweetman. Annapolis, 
Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991. 

-. Power Pack: U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic. 

Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute, 1988. 

Ziemke, Earl. The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany, 1944- 
1946. Army Historical Series. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center 
of Military History, 1975. 

Studies and Monographs 

Aerospace Studies Institute. U.S. Air Force Air University. Guerrilla 
Warfare and Airpower in Korea, 1950-1953. 1964. 

Baldwin, Ben, et al. Case Study of United States Counterinsurgency 
Operations in Laos, 1955-1962. RAC-T-435. Research and Analysis 
Corporation, 1964. 

Barton, Fred. Operational Aspects of Paramilitary Warfare in South 
Korea. ORO-T-25 (FEC). Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1952. 

_. Salient Operational Aspects of Paramilitary Warfare in Three 

Asian Areas. ORO-T-228. Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1953. 

Blaufarb, Douglas. Organizing and Managing Unconventional Warfare 
in Laos, 1962-1970. RAND-R-919-ARPA. Santa Monica, Calif.: 
RAND, 1972. 

Blumstein, Alfred, and Orlansky, Jesse. Behavioral, Political, and 
Operational Research Programs on Counterinsurgency Supported 
by the Department of Defense. Study S-190. Institute for Defense 
Analyses, 1965. 

Boatner, James. American Tactical Units in Revolutionary 
Development Operations. Report 3570. Air War College, Air 
University, 1968. 

Clark, Dorothy, et al. A History of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency 
in Thailand. 2 vols. Research and Analysis Corporation, 1970. 

Cleaver, Frederick, et al. UN Partisan Warfare in Korea, 1951-1954. 
ORO-T-64 (AFFE). Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1956. 

Condit, D. M. Challenge and Response in Internal Conflict. 3 vols. 
Center for Research in Social Systems, 1968. 


517 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Cooper, Chester. The American Experience with Pacification in 
Vietnam. R-185. 3 vols. Institute for Defense Analyses, 1972. 
Daugherty, William, and Andrews, Marshall. A Review of U.S. 
Historical Experience with Civil Affairs, 1776-1954. Operations 
Research Office Technical Paper, ORO-TP-29. Chevy Chase, Md.: 
Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1961. 
Davison, W. Phillips. Political Side-Effects of the Military Assistance 
Training Program. RM-2604. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1960. 

_, and Hungerford, Jean. North Korean Guerrilla Units. RM- 

550. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1951. 

Department of the Army. Rear Area Security in Russia. DA PAM 
20-240. July 1951. 

Edwards, T. I. An Index of RAND Corporation Publications on Tactical 
Warfare and Counterinsurgency. RM 4145-2-PR. Santa Monica, 
Calif.: RAND, 1986. 

Einaudi, Luigi, and Stepan, Alfred. Latin American Institutional 
Development: Changing Military Perspectives in Peru and Brazil. 
R-586-DOS. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1971. 

Galula, David. Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958. RM-3878-ARPA. 

Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1963. 

Gardner, Hugh. Civil War in Greece, 1945-1949. Washington, D.C.: 
U.S. Army Center of Military History, n.d. 

_. Guerrilla and Counterguerrilla Warfare in Greece, 1941-1945. 

Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1962. 
Hanrahan, Gene. Asian Guerrilla Movements. ORO-T-244. Chevy 
Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 
1953. 

_. Chinese Communist Guerrilla Tactics. Columbia University, 

1952. 

_. Japanese Operations Against Guerrilla Forces. ORO-T-268. 

Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins 
University, 1954. 

Hausrath, Alfred. Civil Affairs in the Cold War. ORO-SP-151. Bethesda, 
Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1961. 
Havron, M. Dean, et al. A Counterinsurgency Guide for Area 
Commanders: A Criteria Study. Human Sciences Research, 1965. 
Hermes, Walter. Survey of the Development of the Role of the U.S. 
Army Military Advisor. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of 
Military History, 1965. 

Heymann, H., and Whitson, W. W. Can and Should the United States 
Preserve a Military Capability for Revolutionary Conflict? R-940- 
ARPA. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1972. 


518 






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Hickey, G. C. The American Military Advisor and His Foreign 
Counterpart: The Case of Vietnam. RM-4482-ARPA. Santa Monica, 
Calif.: RAND, 1965. 

Historical Evaluation and Research Organization (HERO). Isolating 
the Guerrilla. 3 vols. Washington, D.C.: HERO, 1966. 

Hoag, C. Leonard. American Military Government in Korea, War 
Policy and the First Year of Occupation, 1941-1946. OCMH- 
76, Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 
1970. 

Holbrook, R., et al. Counterinsurgency Studies in Latin America— 
Venezuela and Colombia. Defense Research Corporation, 1965. 

Holliday, L. P., et al. Final Report: Seminar on Area Security 
and Development (Pacification). RM-5923-ARPA. Santa Monica, 
Calif.: RAND, June 1969. 

Houk, John. Motivating Populations To Support Counterinsurgency. 2 
vols. Special Operations Research Office, 1965. 

Howell, Edgar. The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944. DA PAM 
20-244, 1956. 

Hribar, Arthur. Partisan Warfare, n.d., U.S. Army Center of Military 
History. 

Human Resources Research Institute. The Soviet Partisan Movement 
in World War II: Summary and Conclusions. Research Memo 26. 2 
vols. January 1954. 

Kennedy, Robert. German Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans. DA 
PAM 20-243, 1954. 

Komer, Robert. The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect: Organization 
of a Successful Counterinsurgency Effort. R-957-ARPA. Santa 
Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1972. 

Kraemer, Alfred. Promoting Civic Action in Less Developed Nations: 
A Conceptualization of the U.S. Military Mission Role. Human 
Resources Research Organization, 1968. 

Krepinevich, Andrew. The U.S. Army and Vietnam: Counterinsurgency 
Doctrine and the Army Concept of War. Fort Bragg, N.C.: U.S. Army 
John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, 1984. 

Leighton, Richard, et al. The Huk Rebellion: A Case Study in the Social 
Dynamics of Insurrection. R-231. Washington, D.C.: Industrial 
College of the Armed Forces, 1964. 

Leites, Nathan, and Wolf, Charles. Rebellion and Authority: An Analytic 
Essay on Insurgent Conflicts. R-462-ARPA, Santa Monica, Calif.: 
RAND, 1970. 

Lindsay, Michael. China, 1937-1945. Working paper. Special Operations 
Research Office, 1965. 


519 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Lord, John, et al. A Study of Rear Area Security Measures. Special 
Operations Research Office, American University, 1965. 

McMullan, Philip, et al. Military Civic Action. 2 vols. Research 
Triangle Institute, 1972. 

Massoglia, Martin, et al. Military Civic Action, Evaluation of Military 
Techniques. Research Triangle Institute, 1971. 

Operations Research Office. Force-Tie-Down Capabilities of Guerrillas 
in Malaya. ORO T-72. Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1957. 

_. Guerrilla Warfare in the Federation of Malaya. ORO T-44. 

Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins 
University, 1952. 

_. Psychological Warfare and Other Factors Affecting the 

Surrender and Disaffection Among Communist Terrorists in Malaya. 
ORO T-296. Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns 
Hopkins University, 1955. 

Osanka, Franklin. Counterinsurgency Training: A Select Bibliography. 
Human Resources Research Organization, 1962. 

Pye, Fucian. Lessons from the Malayan Struggle Against Communism. 
Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, 1957. 

Rambo, A. Terry. The Causes of Refugee Movement in Vietnam: 
Report of Survey of Refugees in I and IV Corps. Human Sciences 
Research, 1968. 

_. The Causes of Vietnamese Refugee Movement: An 

Analysis of Factors Contributing to Refugee Migration in Thuong 
Due District, Quang Nam Province. Human Sciences Research, 
1967. 

RAND. Counterinsurgency: A Symposium, 16-20 April 1962. Santa 
Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1963. 

Ronfeldt, David, and Einaudi, Luigi. Internal Security and Military 
Assistance to Latin America in the 1970s: A First Statement. R- 
924-ISA. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1971. 

Siliver, Solomon. Counter-Insurgency and Nation Building: A Study 
with Emphasis on South East Asia. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Agency 
for International Development, 1967. 

Smith, Robert Ross. The Hukbalahap Insurgency: Economic, Political, 
and Military Factors. Office of the Chief of Military History, 
1963. 

Special Operations Research Office. Insurgents and Counterinsurgent 
Strengths and Tactics in Tunisia, 1952-1956. Washington, D.C.: 
American University, 1956. 


520 





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-. Symposium Proceedings. The U.S. Army’s Limited-War 

Mission and Social Science Research. 26, 27, 28 March 1962. 
Washington, D.C.: American University, 1962. 

Stolzenbach, Darwin, and Kissinger, Henry. Civil Affairs in Korea, 
1950—1951. ORO—T—184. Baltimore, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1952. 

Tanham, George. Doctrine and Tactics of Revolutionary Warfare: The 
Viet Minh in Indochina. RM 2395. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 
1959. 

Taw, Jennifer. Thailand and the Philippines, Case Studies in U.S. IMET 
Training and Its Role in Internal Defense and Development. Santa 
Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1994. 

Thayer, Thomas, ed. A Systems Analysis View of the Vietnam War, 
1965-1972. Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 
(Systems Analysis), 1974. U.S. Army Center of Military History. 

U.S. Army Forces Far East. Japanese Studies on Manchuria. Book IV 
Historical Observations of Various Operations in Manchuria. 1955. 

U.S. Army Psychological Warfare School. Guerrilla Warfare. 1953. 

Vigneras, Marcel. Impact of Guerrilla Action on Fogistics in Fimited 
War. ORO-SP-172. Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research Office, 
Johns Hopkins University, 1961. 

Von Futtichau, Charles. Guerrilla and Counterguerrilla Warfare in 
Russia During World War II. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief 
of Military History, 1963. 

Waldman, Eric. German Occupation Administration and Experience in 
the USSR. ORO-T-301. Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1955. 

_. German Use of Indigenous Auxiliary Police in the Occupied 

USSR. ORO-T-320. Chevy Chase, Md.: Operations Research 
Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1955. 

Williams, T. A., and Homesley, Horace. Small Unit Combat Experience, 
Vietnam, 1966-1967. Booz Allen Applied Research, 1967. 

Wolf, Charles. Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: New Myths and Old 
Realities. P-3132-1. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1965. 

Wood, Carlton, et al. Civil Affairs Relations in Korea. ORO-T- 
2464. Baltimore, Md.: Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins 
University, 1954. 

Foreign Military Studies Monographs 

Studies done by former German officers for the U.S. Army. 

Focated at NARA. 


521 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Gaisser, Karl. Partisan Warfare in Croatia. P-055b. 1950. 

Greiffenberg, Hans von. Small Unit Tactics—Partisan Warfare. P— 
060E.1952. 

Haider, Franz, et al. Analysis of U.S. Field Service Regulations. P-133. 
1953. 

Haselmayr, Friedrich. Small Scale Warfare in Western Ukraine. 
D-261. 

Kesselring, Albert. The War Behind the Front: Guerrilla Warfare. 
C-032. 1950. 

Fanz, Hubert. Partisan Warfare in the Balkans. P-055a. 

Ratcliffe, Alexander. Fessons Fearned from the Partisan War in Russia. 
P-055c. 

_. Partisan Warfare: A Treatise Based on Combat Experience in 

the Balkans. P-142. 1953. 


Articles 

Ahearn, Arthur. “Medicine in Internal Defense.” Military Review 47 
(September 1967): 67-72. 

Alpern, Stephen. “Insurgency in Thailand: An Analysis of the 
Government Response.” Military Review 55 (July 1955): 10-17. 
“Antiguerrilla Operations.” Officers Call 3 (March 1951): 1-15. 
“Armies Can Be Builders.” Army Information Digest 20 (February 
1965): 16-19. 

Arnold, Gary. “IMET in Fatin America.” Military Review 61 (February 
1987): 30^11. 

Atkinson, James. “The Impact of Soviet Theory on Warfare as a 
Continuation of Politics.” Military Affairs 24 (Spring 1960): 1-6. 
Auletta, Anthony. “Ten-Nation Progress Report.” Army 13 (July 1963): 
53-59. 

Baker, John, and Dickson, Fee. “Army Forces in Riverine Operations.” 

Military Review Al (August 1967): 64-74. 

Balcos, Anastase. “Guerrilla Warfare.” Military Review 38 (March 
1958): 49-54. 

Barrett, Raymond. “The Development Process and Stability Operations.” 
Militaiy Review 52 (November 1972): 58-68. 

_. “Graduated Response and the Fessons of Vietnam.” Military 

Review 52 (May 1972): 80-91. 

_. “Updating Civil Affairs Doctrine and Organization.” Militaiy 

Review 54 (July 1974): 50-61. 

Bartlett, Merrill. “The Communist Insurgency in Thailand.” Marine 
Corps Gazette 57 (March 1973): 42-49. 


522 






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Bashore, Boyd. ‘'Dual Strategy for Limited War.” Military Review 40 
(May 1960): 46-62. 

-. “The Name of the Game Is Search and Destroy.” Army 17 

(February 1967): 56-59. 

_• "Organization for Frontless War.” Military Review 44 (May 

1964): 3-16. 

_• "The Parallel Hierarchies, Parts I and II.” Infantry 58 (May- 

June 1968): 5-8, and 58 (July-August 1968): 11-15. 

“Battle Lore.” Army Information Digest 22 (July 1967): 40-43. 

“Battle Lore.” Army Information Digest 22 (September 1967): 17-20. 

Beaumont, Roger. “The Military Utility of Limited War.” Military 
Review 47 (May 1967): 53-57. 

Beebe, John. “Beating the Guerrilla.” Military Review 35 (December 
1955): 3-18. 

Bentz, Harold. “Psychological Warfare and Civic Action.” Army 13 
(July 1963): 62-65. 

Berry, Sidney. “Observations of a Brigade Commander, Parts I, II, and 
III.” Military Review 48 (January 1968): 3-21; 48 (February 1968): 
54-66; and 48 (March 1968): 31-M8. 

Biggio, Charles. “Let’s Learn from the French.” Military Review 46 
(October 1966): 27-34. 

Bjelajac, Slavko. “Malaya: Case History in Area Operations.” Army 12 
(May 1962): 30^10. 

_. “Psywar: The Lessons from Algeria.” Military Review 42 

(December 1962): 2-7. 

Blackledge, David. “ROTC Counterguerrillas.” Infantry 53 (January- 
February 1963): 49-50. 

Block, Thomas. “Quick Fire.” Infantry 54 (January-February 1964): 
18-19. 

Boatner, Mark. “The Unheeded History of Counterinsurgency.” Army 
16 (September 1966): 31-36. 

Bodron, Margaret. “U.S. Intervention in Lebanon—1958.” Military 
Review 56 (February 1976): 66-76. 

Bohannan, Charles. “Antiguerrilla Operations.” Annals 341 (May 
1962): 19-29. 

Bonesteel, Charles. “U.S.-South Korean Partnership Holds a Truculent 
North at Bay A Army 19 (October 1969): 59-63. 

Booth, Waller. “Operation Swamprat.” U.S. Army Combat Forces 
Journal 1 (October 1950): 23-26. 

_. “The Pattern That Got Lost.” Army 31 (April 1981): 62-67. 

Bourdow, Joseph. “Big War Guerrillas and Counter-Guerrillas.” Army 
13 (August 1962): 66-69. 


523 








Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Bricker, Bill. “The S-2 in Counter Guerrilla Operations.” Infantry 56 
(July-August 1966): 12-15. 

Brown, Frank. “Pass on that Combat Lore.” Army 16 (September 
1966): 56-68. 

Brown, Michael. “Vietnam, Learning from the Debate.” Military 
Review 67 (February 1987): 48-55. 

Buchanan, William, and Hyatt, Robert. “Building a Counterinsurgent 
Political Infrastructure.” Military Review 48 (September 1968): 
25-41. 

_. “Capitalizing on Guerrilla Vulnerabilities.” Military Review 

48 (August 1968): 3-40. 

Burke, Robert. “Military Civic Action.” Military Review 44 (October 
1964): 62-71. 

Cannon, Michael. “The Development of the American Theory of 
Limited War, 1945-1963.” Armed Forces and Society 9 (Fall 1992): 
71-104. 

Carmichael, Robert, and Eckert, Richard. “Operation New Life.” 

Infantry 57 (January-February 1967): 43-47. 

“Characteristics of Guerrilla Operations.” Infantry 52 (May-June 
1962): 9, 64-66. 

Clingham, James. “‘All American’ Team Work.” Army Information 
Digest 22 (January 1967): 19-23. 

Clutterbuck, Richard. “Communist Defeat in Malaya: A Case Study.” 

Military Review 43 (September 1963): 63-78. 

Codo, Enrique. “The Urban Guerrilla.” Military Review 51 (August 
1971): 3-10. 

Cole, Earl. “Replacement Operations in Vietnam.” Military Review 48 
(February 1968): 3-8. 

Coles, Harry. “Strategic Studies Since 1945, the Era of Overthink.” 

Military Review 53 (April 1973): 3-16. 

Collier, Thomas. “Partisans, the Forgotten Force.” Infantry School 
Quarterly (August-September 1960): 4-8. 

“Considerations in Fighting Irregular Forces.” Infantrv 52 (July-August 

1962) : 8-9, 39-41. 

Cornett, Jack. “Jungle Bashing.” Infantry 52 (May-June 1962): 18-20. 
“Counterguerrilla Units Flourish in ROTC.” Army Reservist 9 (April 

1963) : 15. 

Curtin, Edwin. “American Advisory Group Aids Greece in War of 
Guerrillas.” Armored Cavalrv Journal 58 (January-February 1949): 
8-11, 34-35. 

Daley, John. “US. Army Combat Developments Command.” Army 
Information Digest 17 (September 1962): 13-18. 


524 



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Davenport, Robert. “Barrier Along the Korean DMZ.” Infantry 51 
(May-June 1967): 40-42. 

“Defense in the Jungle.” Infantry 52 (March-April 1962): 53-54. 
Dexter, George. “Search and Destroy in Vietnam.” Infantry 56 (July- 
August 1966): 36-42. 

Dials, George. “Find, Fix and Finish.” Infantry 60 (September-October 
1970): 23-25. 

Dickerson, William. “Advisor on Combat Operations.” Army 13 
(November 1962): 65-66. 

Dillon, Dana. “Comparative Counter-Insurgency Strategies in the 
Philippines.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 6 (Winter 1995): 281— 
303. 

Dominguez, Jorge. “Responses to Occupations by the United States: 

Calibans’ Dilemma.” Pacific Historical Review 48 (1979): 591-605. 
Downen, Robert. “Jungle Attacks.” Infantry 52 (March-April 1962): 
40-41. 

Downey, Edward. “Theory of Guerrilla Warfare.” Militaiy Review 39 
(May 1959): 45-55. 

Easterbrook, Ernest. “Guerrilla Training Is Standard Fare for 25th 
Division.” Army, Navv, Air Force Journal and Register 99 (4 August 
1962): 15-16. 

_. “Realism in Counterinsurgency Training.” Army Information 

Digest 17 (October 1962): 12-21. 

Ekman, Michael. “Lessons Learned as a Company Commander.” 

Infantry 57 (July-August 1967): 20-22. 

Fairbairn, Geoffrey. “Approaches to Counter-Insurgency Thinking 
Since 1947.” South-East Asian Spectrum 2 (January 1974): 21-32. 
Fall, Bernard. “Indochina: The Last Year of the War, Communist 
Organization and Tactics.” Military Review 36 (October 1956): 
1 - 11 . 

_. “Indochina: The Last Year of the War, The Navarre Plan.” 

Military Review 36 (December 1956): 48-56. 

Fisher, Albert. “To Beat the Guerrillas at Their Own Game.” Military 
Review 43 (December 1963): 81-86. 

Fletcher, James. “Psychology in Civic Action.” Infantry 53 (November- 
December 1963): 18-21. 

Foland, Frances. “Agrarian Reform in Latin America.” Foreign Affairs 
48 (October 1969): 97-112. 

Galvin, John. “Three Innovations: Prime Tactical Lessons of the 
Vietnam War.” Army 22 (March 1972): 16-20. 

Gann, Lewis. “Guerrillas and Insurgency: An Interpretive Survey.” 
Military Review 46 (March 1966): 44-59. 


525 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Gates, John. “Peoples’ War in Vietnam.” Journal of Military History 54 
(July 1990): 325-44. 

Gazlay, John. “Rx the Insurgent: Locate, Isolate, Eradicate.” 2 pts. 
Armor 80 (November-December 1971): 39-45; 81 (January- 
February 1972): 46-52. 

“German Antipartisan Operation in Russia: Attack on a Partisan 
Headquarters.” Infantry 53 (May-June 1963): 29-32. 

“German Antipartisan Operation in Russia: The Forrest Camp.” 

Infantry 53 (March-April 1963): 19—21. 

“German Tactics of Combating Guerrillas.” Military Review 24 (June 
1944): 104-06. 

Gillert, Gustav. “Counterinsurgency.” Military Review 45 (April 1965): 

25- 33. 

Girouard, Richard. “District Intelligence in Vietnam.” Armor 75 
(November-December 1966): 10-14. 

Glick, Edward. “Military Civic Action: Thorny Art of the Peace 
Keepers.” Army 17 (September 1967): 67-70. 

Graham, Barry. “Mechanized Forces in Vietnam.” Infantry 59 (July- 
August 1969): 45-48. 

Graves, Patrick. “Observations of a Platoon Leader.” 3 pts. Infantry 57 
(May-June 1967): 34-38; 57 (July-August 1967): 25-29; and 57 
(September-October 1967): 42-47. 

Gray, David. “When We Fight a Small War.” Army 10 (July 1960): 

26- 34. 

“The Greek Guerrillas—How They Operate.” Intelligence Review 156 
(March 1949): 27-36. 

Greenberg, Lawrence. “The U.S. Dominican Intervention: Success 
Story.” Parameters 17 (December 1987): 18-29. 

Greenspan, Morris. “International Law and Its Protection for Participants 
in Unconventional Warfare.” Annals 341 (May 1962): 30^41. 
Griffin, William. “Army Aviation in Support of Counterguerrilla 
Operations.” US. Army Aviation Digest 8 (September 1962): 
9-14. 

Griffith, Samuel B. “Guerrilla.” 2 pts. Antiaircraft Journal 93 
(September-October 1950): 15-18, and 93 (November-December 
1950): 50-53. 

Grimland, Neal. “The Formidable Guerrilla.” Army 12 (February 
1962): 63-66. 

Grinter, Lawrence. “HowThey Lost: Doctrines, Strategies and Outcomes 
of the Vietnam War.” Asian Swwey 15 (December 1975): 1114-32. 
Grossman, Frank. “Artillery in Vietnam.” Ordnance 52 (November- 
December 1967): 268-71. 


526 



Select Bibliography 


Guelzo, Carl. “The Higher Level Staff Advisor.” Military Review 47 
(February 1967): 92-98. 

“Guerrilla Warfare—As the High Command Sees It.” Army 12 (March 
1962): 42-44. 

Guthrie, William. “Korea: The Other DMZ.” Infantry 60 (March—April 
1970): 17-22. 

Hackworth, David. “Baptism to Command.” Infantry 57 (November— 
December 1967): 38-43. 

_• “Guerrilla Battalion, U.S. Style.” Infantry 61 (January- 

February 1971): 22-28. 

_. “Hedgerows of Vietnam.” Infantry 57 (May-June 1967): 3-7. 

_. “No Magic Formula.” Infantry 57 (January-February 1967): 

33-47. 

_. “Target Acquisition Vietnam Style.” Military Review 48 

(April 1968): 73-79. 

_. “Your Mission—Out-Guerrilla the Guerrilla.” Army 

Information Digest 23 (July 1968): 61-62. 

Hallenbeck, Ralph. “Combat Wedge.” Infantry 59 (January-February 
1969): 43-44. 

Hallock, Donald. “No Battle Is Lost.” Army Information Digest 22 
(January 1967): 6-9. 

Harmon, Christopher. “Illustrations of‘Learning’ in Counterinsurgency.” 
Comparative Strategy 11 (January-March 1992): 29-^48. 

Harrigan, Anthony. “Ground Warfare in Vietnam.” Military Review 47 
(April 1967): 60-67. 

Hauser, William. “Fire and Maneuver.” Infantry 60 (September- 
October 1970): 12-15. 

Heilbrunn, Otto. “A Doctrine for Counterinsurgents.” Marine Corps 
Gazette 48 (February 1964): 31-38. 

Heiman, Leo. “Guerrilla Warfare: An Analysis.” Military Review 43 
(July 1963): 26-36. 

Henry, Tom. “Techniques from Trung Lap.” Army 14 (April 1964): 
35-43. 

Heymont, Irving. “Armed Forces and National Development.” Military 
Review 49 (December 1969): 50-55. 

_. “The U.S. Army and Foreign National Development.” 

Military Review 51 (November 1971): 17-23. 

Hilbert, Marquis, and Murray, Everett. “Use of Army Aviation in 
Counterinsurgency Operations.” US. Army Aviation Digest 8 
(October 1962): 3-9. 

Hille, Henry. “Eighth Army’s Role in the Military Government of 
Japan.” Military Review 27 (February 1948): 9-18. 


527 










Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Hoefling, John. “For the Junior Leader: How To Command in Vietnam.” 

Infantry 60 (January-February 1970): 41-47. 

Holliday, Sam. “An Offensive Response.” Military Review 43 (April 

1963) : 16-23. 

_. “Warfare of the Future.” Military Review 49 (August 1969): 

12-17. 

Hughes, David. “The Myth of Military Coups and Military Assistance.” 

Military Review 47 (December 1967): 3-9. 

Huppert, G. Harry. “Bullets Alone Won’t Win.” Infantry 54 (July- 
August 1964): 38—42. 

Hurdle, Karl. “Utah Counterguerrillas.” Infantry 53 (November- 
December 1963): 62-63. 

lies, Steve. “Cave Hunting Techniques.” Infantry 56 (July-August 
1966): 25-27. 

“This Is the Way It Is: Patrolling in Vietnam.” Army Information Digest 
22 (October 1967): 19-21. 

Jacobs, Walter. “Mao Tse-Tung as a Guerrilla—A Second Look.” 
Military Review 37 (February 1958): 26-30. 

_. “This Matter of Counterinsurgency.” Military Review 44 

(October 1964): 79-85. 

Jamison, Robert. “Assault Fire.” Infantry 59 (January-February 1969): 
45. 

Jarrin, Edgardo. “Insurgency in Latin America—Its Impact on 
Political and Military Strategy.” Military Review 49 (March 1969): 
10 - 20 . 

Jenkins, Brian, and Sereseres, Caesar. “United States Military Assistance 
and the Guatemalan Armed Forces.” Armed Forces and Society 3 
(Summer 1977): 575-94. 

Johnson, Harold. “The Army’s Role in Nation Building and Preserving 
Stability.” Army Information Digest 20 (November 1965): 6-13. 

_. “The Chief of Staff on Military Strategy in Vietnam.” Army 

Information Digest 23 (April 1968): 6-9. 

_. “Landpower Missions Unlimited.” Army 14 (November 

1964) : 41-42. 

_. “Subversion and Insurgency: Search for a Doctrine.” Army 15 

(November 1965): 40-42. 

Johnson, James. “People’s War and Conventional Armies.” Military 
Review 54 (January 1974): 24-33. 

Jones, Grady. “Dos and Don’ts in Vietnam.” Infantrv 56 (March-April 
1966): 25-28. 

Jones, Richard. “The Nationbuilder: Soldier of the 1960s.” Military 
Review 45 (January 1965): 63-67. 


528 








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Kauffman, Andrew. “On 'Wars of National Liberation.’” Military 
Review 48 (October 1968): 32-44. 

Kee, Robeit. Algiers—1957: An Approach to Urban Counter¬ 
insurgency.” Military Review 54 (April 1974): 73-84. 

Kelly, George. “Footnotes on Revolutionary War.” Military Review 42 
(September 1962): 31-39. 

Kelly, Joseph. What Rules for Twilight Wars?” Military Review 44 
(April 1964): 48-56. 

Kinnard, Harry. “Vietnam Has Lessons for Tomorrow’s Army.” Army 
18 (November 1968): 77-80. 

Klein, William. “Stability Operations in Santo Domingo.” Infantry 56 
(May-June 1966): 35-39. 

Koburger, Charles. “Morning Coats and Brass Hats.” Military Review 
45 (April 1965): 65-74. 

Kousoulas, Dimitrios. “The Crucial Point of a Counterguerrilla 
Campaign.” Infantry 53 (January-February 1963): 18-21. 

_• “The Guerrilla War the Communists Lost.” U.S. Naval 

Institute Proceedings 89 (May 1963): 66-73. 

Krasin, Chaiyo. “Military Civic Action in Thailand.” Military Review 
48 (January 1968): 73-77. 

Kutger, Joseph. “Irregular Warfare in Transition.” Military Affairs 24 
(Fall 1960): 113-23. 

Ladd, Jonathan. “Some Reflections of Counterinsurgency.” Military 
Review 44 (October 1964): 72-78. 

Lansdale, Edward. “Civic Action Helps Counter the Guerrilla Threat.” 
Army Information Digest 17 (June 1962): 50-54. 

Lenderman, Bob. “Airmobile Tactics and Techniques.” US. Army 
Aviation Digest 11 (January 1965): 2-6. 

Lesh, Burton. “Anti-Guerrilla SOP.” Infantry 52 (July-August 1962): 
30-31. 

_. “Lessons Learned: Thailand.” Infantiy 54 (March-April 

1964): 56-59. 

Lieber, Albert. “Hide and Seek with Guerrillas.” Infantry 52 (March- 
April 1962): 17-18. 

Lincoln, George, and Jordan, Jr., Amos. “Limited War and the 
Scholars.” Military Review 37 (January 1958): 50-60. 

Linebarger, Paul. “They Call ’Em Bandits in Malaya.” US. Army 
Combat Forces Journal 1 (January 1951): 27-29. 

Livingston, George. “Attack of a Fortified Position.” Infantry 59 
(September-October 1969): 13-15. 

Livingston, Hoyt, and Watson, Francis. “Civic Action: Purpose and 
Pitfalls.” Military Review 47 (December 1967): 21-25. 


529 





Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Long, William. “Counterinsurgency: Some Antecedents for Success.” 

Military Review 43 (October 1963): 90-97. 

Lubenow, Larry. “Objective Rice.” Infantry 56 (November-December 

1966 ) : 41 - 42 . 

Lyon, Hal. “If the Cause Is Right.” Infantry 54 (March-April 1964): 
52-53. 

Lyon, Harold. “Cancer Action.” Army 12 (August 1962): 50-53. 
McCuen, John. “Can We Win Revolutionary Wars?” Army 19 (December 

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Mace, James. “Take That Bunker Complex!” Infantry 60 (September- 
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McEnery, John. “We Can Do Better.” Infantry 60 (November-December 

1970) : 42-45. 

Machado, J. Bina. “The Making of Brazilian Staff Officers.” Military 
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Mack, Richard. “Hold and Pacify.” Military Review 47 (November 

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McNamara, Michael. “Tips for the Delta Advisor.” Infantry 56 
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Montross, Lynn. “The Pohang Guerrilla Hunt.” Marine Corps Gazette 
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530 


Select Bibliography 


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Quarterly 39 (July 1951): 52-69. 

Nathan, Reuben. “Psychological Warfare: Key to Success in Vietnam.” 
Military Review 48 (April 1968): 19-28. 

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Infantry 60 (September-October 1970): 50-55. 

Nichols, Ben. “The Sky’s No Limit.” Infantry 53 (November—December 
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Norman, Lloyd, and Spore, John. “Big Push in Guerrilla Warfare.” 
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531 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


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Peers, William. “Meeting the Challenge of Subversion.” Army 15 
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Prillaman, Richard. “Vietnam Update.” Infantry 59 (May-June 1969): 
18-19. 

Prosser, Lamar. “The Bloody Lessons of Indochina.” US. Army Combat 
Forces Journal 5 (June 1955): 23-30. 

Pruden, Wesley. “Asia’s Other War.” Army 17 (November 1967): 26-31. 
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insurgency Exercise.” Infantry 55 (May-June 1965): 45-49. 

Rattan, Donald. “Antiguerrilla Operations: A Case Study from History.” 

Military Review 40 (May 1960): 23-27. 

Ray, James. “The District Advisor.” Military Review 45 (May 1965): 
3-8. 

“Readiness for the Little War, Optimum Integrated Strategy.” Military 
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Rempe, Dennis. “Guerrillas, Bandits, and Independent Republics: U.S. 
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Rigg, Robert. “Get Guerrilla-Wise.” US. Army Combat Forces Journal 
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_. “Twilight War.” Military Review 40 (November 1960): 

28-32. 

Rosen, Stephen. “Vietnam and the American Theory of Limited War.” 

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Rosson, William. “Accent on Cold War Capabilities.” Army Information 
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532 




Select Bibliography 


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Sananikone, Oudone. “Laos: Case Study in Civic Action, The Royal 
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Scales, Robert. “Firepower and Maneuver in the Second Indochina 
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53. 

Selton, Robert. “Communist Errors in the Anti-Bandit War.” Military 
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Shelton, Ralph. “Advice for Advisors.” Infantry 54 (July-August 
1964): 12-13. 

Shutfer, George. “Finish Them with Firepower.” Military Review 47 
(December 1967): 11-15. 

Slover, Robert. “Action Through Civic Action.” Army Information 
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_. “This Is Military Civic Action.” Army 13 (July 1963): 

48-52. 

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66-67. 

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Smith, Robert Ross. “The Flukbalahap Insurgency.” Militaiy Review 45 
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Smithers, Samuel. “Combat Units in Revolutionary Development.” 
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Sorley, Lewis. “The Quiet War: Revolutionary Development.” Military 
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Souyris, Andre. “An Effective Counterguerrilla Procedure.” Military 
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“Soviet Partisan Warfare.” Army Information Digest 6 (February 1951): 
61-64. 

Spence, Larry. “Stay-Behind Ambush.” Infantry 59 (July-August 
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Stang, Arthur. “Stand and Fight.” Infantry 56 (March-April 1966): 
32-39. 

Stanton, Shelby. “Lessons Learned or Lost: Air Cavalry and Air- 
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Starry, Donn. “La Guerre Revolutionnaire.” Military> Review 47 
(February 1967): 60-70. 


533 




Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Stewart, Edward. “American Advisors Overseas.” Military Review 45 
(February 1965): 3-9. 

Stilwell, Richard. “Evolution in Tactics—The Vietnam Experience.” 
Army 20 (February 1970): 14-23. 

Stocked, Charles. “Laos: Case Study in Civic Action, The Military 
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Tanham, George, and Duncanson, Dennis. “Some Dilemmas of 
Counterinsurgency.” Foreign Affairs 48 (October 1969): 113— 
22 . 

Tilman, Robert. “The Nonlessons of the Malayan Emergency.” Military 
Review 46 (December 1966): 62-71. 

Tippin, Garold. “The Army as Nationbuilder.” Military Review 50 
(October 1970): 11-19. 

Trigg, Harry. “A New ATT.” Army 13 (February 1963): 35-39. 

Turner, Frederick. “Experiment in Inter-American Peace-Keeping.” 
Army 17 (June 1967): 34-39. 

Van der Kroef, Justus. “Guerrilla Communism and Counterinsurgency 
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_. “Organizing Counter-Insurgency: The Thai Experience.” 

South-East Asian Spectrum 2 (January 1974): 45-53. 

Venero, Enrique. “Success in Peru: A Case Study in Counterinsurgency.” 

Military Review 46 (February 1966): 15-21. 

Vought, Donald. “Preparing for the Wrong War?” Military Review 57 
(May 1977): 16-34. 

Waghelstein, John. “Post-Vietnam Counterinsurgency Doctrine.” 

Military Review 65 (June 1985): 42-49. 

Wallace, J. A. “Counterinsurgency ATT.” Army 16 (August 1966): 76-77. 
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Military Review 42 (August 1962): 47-54. 

_. “Good Neighbors in Uniform.” Military Review 45 (February 

1965): 10-18. 

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1943): 79-80. 

Warmbrod, Karlton. “Defense of Rear Areas.” Infantry School Quarterly 
40 (April 1952): 5-15. 

Weinrod, W. Bruce. “Counterinsurgency: Its Role in Defense Policy.” 

Strategic Review 2 (Fall 1974): 36-40. 

Westmoreland, William. “The Fight for Freedom in Viet Nam.” Army 
Information Digest 20 (February 1965): 7-15. 

Weyand, Frederick. “Winning the People in Hau Nghia Province.” 

Army 17 (February 1967): 52-55. 

Widder, David. “Ambush.” Army 12 (November 1961): 38-42. 


534 





Select Bibliography 


Williams, Justin. “From Charlottesville to Tokyo: Military Government 
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Historical Review 51 (1982): 407-22. 

Williamson, Ellis. “Defense of a Firebase.” Infantry 59 (November- 
December 1969): 6-12. 

Willoughby, William. “Revolutionary Development.” Infantry 58 
(November-December 1968): 4-10. 

Wroth, James. “Korea: Our Next Vietnam?” Military Review 48 
(November 1968): 34-40. 

Ximenes. “Revolutionary War.” Militarv Review 37 (August 1957): 
103-08. 

Yarborough, William. “‘Young Moderns’ Are Impetus Behind Army’s 
Special Forces.” Army 12 (March 1962): 38-39. 

Zacharakis, E. “Lessons Learned in the Anti-Guerrilla War in Greece, 
1946-1949.” General Military Review (July 1960): 179-202. 

Zimmerman, Robert. “Insurgency in Thailand.” Problems of Communism 
25 (May-June 1976): 18-39. 


535 



























































Glossary 


AARs 

After action reports 

ACSFOR 

Assistant chief of staff for force 
development 

ACSI 

Assistant chief of staff for intelligence 

ACTIV 

Army Concept Team in Vietnam 

AFAK 

Armed Forces Assistance to Korea 

AFB 

Air force base 

AFP 

Armed Forces of the Philippines 

AID 

Agency for International Development 

AIT 

Advanced individual training 

AMAG 

American Mission to Aid Greece 

AR 

Army regulation 

ARCOV 

U.S. Army Combat Operations in Vietnam 

ARVN 

Army of the Republic of Vietnam 

ATPs 

Army training programs 

ATTs 

Army training tests 

AWC 

Army War College 

CAP 

U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action 
Platoon 

CCP 

Chinese Communist Party 

CDC 

Combat Developments Command 

CGSC 

U.S. Army Command and General Staff 
College 

CIA 

Central Intelligence Agency 

CIDG 

Civilian Irregular Defense Group 

CINCPAC 

Commander in chief, Pacific 

CIOG 

Counterinsurgency Operations Group 

CJCS 

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff 

CMH 

U.S. Army Center of Military History 

CONARC 

Continental Army Command 

CORDS 

Civil Operations and Revolutionary 
Development Support 

CPT 

Communist Party Thailand 


537 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


CSA 

CY 

DA 

DCG, USARV 

DF 

DMZ 

E 

EDCOR 

EIP 

ELAS 

EUSAK 

I FFV 

II FFV 
FAO 
FAS 
FM 
FRUS 
FYs 

GGS 

GNA 

GO 

H&I 

HERO 


IAPF 

ICAS 

ID 

IDAD 

IDAID 

ID/D 

IDD 

ID/DOG 

IDEV 

IDID 


Chief of staff, Army 
Calendar year 

Department of the Army 
Deputy commanding general, U.S. Army 
Vietnam 

Disposition form 
Demilitarized Zone 

Entry 

Economic Development Corps 
Environmental Improvement Program 
National Popular Liberation Army 
Eighth U.S. Army in Korea 

I Field Force 

II Field Force 
Foreign area officer 
Foreign area specialist 
Field manual 

Foreign Relations of the United States 
Fiscal years 

Greek General Staff 
Greek National Army 
General Orders 

Harassment and interdiction 
Historical Evaluation and Research 
Organization 

Inter-American Peacekeeping Force 
Institute of Combined Arms and Support 
Intelligence document 
Internal defense and development 
Internal defense and internal development 
Internal defense and internal development 
Internal defense and internal development 
Internal Defense/Development Operations 
Group 

Internal development 

Internal defense and internal development 


Glossary 


IMA 

IOAC 

JCS 

JUSMAG 

JUSMAPG 


KMAG 

KMT 

LIC 

LL 

LRRPs 

MAAG 

MACTHAI 

MACV 

MAOP 

MATA 

MDA 

MDAP 

MEDCAP 

MEDCAP II 

MFR 

MHI 

MMAS 

NARA 

NDC 

NIDCC 

NISC 

NSC 

OACS 

OACSFOR 

OAS 

OCMH 


Institute for Military Assistance 
Infantry officer advanced course 

Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group 
Joint U.S. Military Advisory and Planning 
Group, Greece 

Korean Military Assistance Group 
Nationalist Kuomintang Party 

Low intensity conflict 
Lessons learned 

Long-range reconnaissance patrols 

Military assistance advisory group 
Military Assistance Command, 

Thailand 

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 
Military Assistance Officer Program 
Military assistance training adviser 
Mutual Defense Assistance 
Mutual Defense Assistance Program 
Medical civic action program 
MEDCAP program expansion 
Memorandum for the record 
U.S. Army Military History Institute 
Master of Military Arts and Sciences 

National Archives and Records 
Administration 
National Defense Corps 
National Internal Defense Coordination 
Center 

National Internal Security Committee 
National Security Council 

Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff 
Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for 
Force Development 
Organization of American States 
Office of the Chief of Military History 


539 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


ODCSOPS 

OIDP 

ORLL 

OSO 

OSS 

P&O 

PAVN 

PRD 

RACs 

RG 

ROAD 

ROK 

ROTC 

ROT CM 

SACS A 

SAFs 

SCAP 

SEATO 

SKLP 

SOP 

SORO 

ST 

STARS-70 

STRAC 

STRICOM 

UAR 

UN 

USACDC 

USASOC/HO 

USFORDR 

USIA 

USIS 

USMA 

USSR 


Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for 
Military Operations 
Overseas Internal Defense Policy 
Operational report-lessons learned 
Overseas Security Operations 
Office of Strategic Services 

Plans and operations 

People s Army of Vietnam 

Partido Revolucionario Dominicano 

Regional Assistance Commands 
Record group 

Reorganization Objective Army Division 
Republic of Korea 
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps 
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Manual 

Special assistant to the chief of staff for 
special warfare activities 
Special Action Forces 
Supreme commander for the allied powers 
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization 
South Korean Labor Party 
Standing operating procedure 
Special Operations Research Office 
Special text 

“Strategic Army Study, 1970” 

Strategic Army Corps 
Strike Command 

United Arab Republic 
United Nations 

US. Army Combat Developments 
Command 

History Office, US. Army Special 
Operations Command 
United States Forces, Dominican Republic 
U.S. Information Agency 
United States Information Service 
U.S. Military Academy 
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 


Glossary 


WD 

WSEG 


War Department 

Weapon System Evaluation Group 


541 







Index 


Abrams, General Creighton W., 367, 
368, 382, 400, 478 
Acheson, Dean, 119, 348 
Adams, Maj. Gen. Paul D., 188, 198 
Adjutant General’s School, Camp 
Lee, 152 

Advanced Individual Training (AIT), 
463, 464. See also Military 
assistance training adviser 
(MATA) course. 

Advisers 

avoid atrocities, 253 
in China, 37,38, 72, 247, 451 
in Colombia, 299, 300 
doctrine for, 118, 166 
in Greece, 47, 48, 72, 312 
Kennedy increases in Vietnam, 

315 ' 

in Korea, 88-91, 93-95, 97, 98, 
100-102, 312, 333 
in Latin America, 298, 301 
in the Philippines, 72 
as social engineers, 444 
in Southeast Asia, 229 
in Thailand, 339 
training, 257-58 
in Vietnam, 304-28, 369, 401 
Agency for International Develop¬ 
ment (AID), 228, 238, 389, 477 
and Civil Operations and 
Revolutionary Development 
Support, 325 

counterinsurgency training, 260 
and indigenous police forces, 228, 
477 

and military considerations, 294, 
302 

Office of Public Safety, 300 


Agency for International Develop¬ 
ment (AID)—Continued 
responsibilities of, 439 
tours of duty, 347 
work in Latin America, 298 
work in Thailand, 337 
Agrovilles (Vietnam), 319 
Airborne Brigade, 173d, 270, 374 
civil affairs and psyops program 
of, 396-97 

creates Security Training 
Assistance Group, 401 
long-range reconnaissance patrol, 
376 

Airborne Division, 82d 

in Dominican Republic, 204, 205, 
208,211,212 

lessons learned study, 212, 213 
part of Inter-American 

Peacekeeping Force (IAPF), 
209 

Airborne Division, 101st, 1st 
Brigade, 375 
Airpower 

in counterguerrilla warfare, 139, 
143, 168, 246, 402, 487 
in FM 100-5 (1962), 240 
and Greek insurrection, 52 
in Korea, 101, 107 
role of, 10 
and technology, 491 
use of helicopters, 52, 109, 115, 
138, 150, 155, 378 
used in harassment campaigns, 
243 

in Vietnam, 363, 380, 386 
Albania, 42, 53 
Algeria, 162, 163, 230, 265 


543 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Alliance for Progress, 294 
creation of, 292 
results of, 304, 435-36 
Almond, Maj. Gen. Edward M., 113, 
114 

Alvim, Lt. Gen. Hugo Panasco, 209, 
213 

American Mission to Aid Greece 
(AMAG), 46 
Amnesty programs 

doctrinal discussion of, 168 
in Thailand, 344 
in Vietnam, 325, 398 
“Anti-Guerrilla Guerrilla, The” 
(McGarr), 313 

Apache Forces (Vietnam), 377 
Arab-Israeli War, 1973, 482 
Arana Osorio, Col. Carlos, 301 
Area clearance, 97, 136, 167-68, 

235. See also Oil-spot method 
(tache d’huile ); Resettlement. 
Armed Forces Assistance to Korea 
(AFAK), 111-12, 160, 334 
Armed Forces of the Philippines 
(AFP), 61, 63, 64, 65, 8 I/ 16 I 
Armor 

in Greece, 51 
in Korea, 101 

role of, in counterinsurgency, 139, 
151,245-46 
in Vietnam, 384 

Army, Eighth U.S. See Eighth U.S. 

Army in Korea (EUSAK). 

Army Field Forces, 131, 149, 150, 
231 

Army Ground Forces, 231 
Army Intelligence Agency, 432-33 
Army of the Republic of Vietnam 
development of, 308, 309, 311, 312 
weaknesses of, 322-23 
Army Strategic Studies Institute, 483 
Army War College, Carlisle Barracks 
lessons-learned study on Vietnam, 
483 

reduces counterinsurgency 
instruction, 480-81 


Army War College, Carlisle 
Barracks—Continued 
studies counterinsurgency, 152, 
212, 266, 461 

Artillery, 151, 244^15, 253, 412^47. 
See also Harassment and 
interdiction, 
in training, 274 
use of, in Greece, 48, 51 
use in Korea, 101, 106 
in Vietnam, 380, 381, 382 
Assistant Chief of Staff for Force 
Development (ACSFOR), 

439, 442. See also Office 
of the Assistant Chief of 
Staff for Force Development 
(OACSFOR). 

Atrocities, 236, 253. See also Terror; 
Torture; Troop conduct, 
at My Lai (Son My), 404 
Aussaresses, Lt. Col. Paul, 230 

Balaguer, Joaquin, 203, 210 

Ball, George, 487 

Barr, Maj. Gen. David G. 

and Chinese Civil War, 37, 38, 39, 
40,41 

in Korea, 114 

Barrio United Defense Corps, 55- 
56, 58. See also Philippines. 
Bashore, Lt. Col. Boyd T., 436 
BDM Corporation, 483 
Beebe, Lt. Col. John, 101, 153 
Beirut, marines land at, 184. See 
also Lebanon. 

Bell, General J. Franklin, 231 
Bohannan, Lt. Col. Charles T. R., 
281/116 
Bolivia, 300 

Bonesteel, General Charles H., Ill, 
330, 334 

Boorstin, Daniel, 345-46 
Bosch, Juan, 203, 210 
Bradley, General Omar, 14nl 
Brazil, 298 

Brown, Col. Rothwell H., 89 


544 


Index 


Buchanan, Lt. Col. William J., 
439-40, 441 
Bulgaria, 43, 53 
Bunker, Elsworth, 346 
Bureaucratic rivalry, 18, 341, 437, 
438. See also Civil Operations 
and Revolutionary Development 
Support (CORDS), 
and American Mission to Aid 
Greece, 46 

regarding Thailand, 341 
and Vietnam, 324, 389 

Caamano, Col. Francisco, 203 
Callaway, Howard H., 478 
Cambodia, 66, 68, 363 
Communist victory in, 344 
and Geneva Accords, 71 
guerrillas in, 328 
and North Vietnam, 305 
Vietnamese invasion of, 344 
Castro, Fidel, 204, 291, 292, 294 
Cavalry Division, 1st, 270 
Center for Overseas Security 

Operations, Fort Bragg, 442-43 
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 
159, 238, 347, 477 
and Civil Operations and 
Revolutionary Development 
Support, 325 

and counterinsurgency training, 260 
in Laos, 202 

in Latin America, 298, 300 
and Montagnards, 315 
in Thailand, 337, 340^41 
Central Security Command (Korea), 
104 

Chamberlin, Maj. Gen. Stephen J., 51 
Chamoun, Camille, 184, 187 
Charter of Punta del Este, 292 
Cheju-do, Korea, 89, 90, 94, 97 
Chiang Kai-shek, 58, 119 
and Chinese Civil War, 31-42 
counterinsurgency formula, 90 
China, 5, 72, 344, 348, 492 
civil war, 24, 31-42, 85, 361 


China—Continued 
in Korea, 105, 108 
Chinese Communist Party, 31-42 
Chinh, Truong, 261 
Civic action, 160-61, 229 
Army to promote, 163, 166 
in Bolivia, 301 
in Colombia, 301 
definitions of, 160 
in Ecuador, 301 
exercises, 266 
and FM 31-73, 252 
in Guatemala, 300, 301, 302 
in Korea, 334 

in Latin America, 294, 300, 301, 
302 

in Philippines, 63, 65 
and pragmatist school, 440 
role of, in counterinsurgency, 169, 
249 

in South Vietnam, 309, 312, 317, 
325, 397, 398, 401 
success and failure of, 321 
in Thailand, 339 
virtues of, 349 

Civic Action Directorate (South 
Vietnam), 309 

Civil affairs, 28«13, 227, 467, 

486, 492. See also Military 
government, 
advisers, 161, 301 
as a combat arm, 424 
in Dominican Republic, 212, 

215 

Draper Commission 

recommendations on, 160 
and FM 41-10 (1967), 147, 433 
in Greece, 49 
in Korea, 111, 112, 116 
as a primary weapon system, 

430 

in Vietnam, 389, 396-98 
Civil Affairs Agency, Fort Gordon, 
233, 423,424 

Civil Affairs School, Camp Gordon, 
152, 258 


545 


Counterinsurgency' Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Civil Affairs School, Camp 
Gordon—Continued 
becomes part of Center for Over¬ 
seas Security Operations, 
442-43 

curriculum of, 459 
Civil Guard (South Vietnam), 308, 
312, 316. See also Regional 
Forces (South Vietnam). 

Civil Operations and Revolutionary 
Development Support 
(CORDS), 325, 399, 488 
Civilian Irregular Defense Group 
(Vietnam), 315, 377 
Civilian War Casualty Program, 398 
Civilians 

and Geneva Convention, 20 
treatment of, 12, 19 
Clay, Lt. Gen. Lucius D., 15-16 
Clear and hold, 252, 254, 263, 314 
in Vietnam, 316, 368, 462 
Clutterback, Col. Richard L., 
281/116, 458 

Cold War, 3-4, 21, 68, 119 
defined, 195 
U.S. response to, 22-23 
Collins, General J. Lawton, 72, 103, 
108, 109 

Colombia, 298, 299 
Combat Arms Group, 423, 424 
Combat Developments Command 
(CDC), Fort Leavenworth, 256, 
427 

and counterinsurgency 
terminology, 420, 421 
creates Internal Defense and 
Development Field Office, 
469/78 

and doctrine development, 232, 
423 

and FM 31-20, 252 
and FM 31-21, 252 
friction with Continental Army 
Command, 466 
and low intensity conflict, 421 
and Nixon Doctrine, 451, 452 


Combat Developments Command 
(CDC)—Continued 
and “REARM-STABILITY” 
study, 442 

redundancy issues, 425-26, 427 
reorganization of, 423 
reviews counterinsurgency 
doctrine, 252, 253 
reviews reports from Vietnam, 
419-20 

and Special Warfare and Civil 
Affairs Group, 423, 424 
and stability operations doctrine, 
445 

Combat Police Commands (Korea), 
102. See also Security 
Commands (Korea). 

Combat Service Support Group, 233, 
423 

Combined Action Platoon (CAP), 
399-400 

Combined Reconnaissance 
Intelligence Platoon, 376 

Combined Warfare Agency, 233 

“Concepts and General Doctrine for 
Counterinsurgency,” 253-54 

Conduct of Anti-terrorist Operations 
in Malaya , 162, 314. See also 
Great Britain. 

Containment, policy of, 22 

Continental Army Command 

(CONARC), 218/716, 231, 232, 
423, 464, 465,480 
Army training programs (ATPs), 
268 

Army training tests (ATTs), 268 
counterinsurgency terminology, 
422 

and counterinsurgency training, 
259,260,267-71 ' 
and ROTC, 261 

Vietnam familiarization program, 
462 

Contingency operations, 183-217. 
See also Situations short of 
war. 


546 



Index 


Contingency operations—Continued 
defined, 4, 6 
demands of, 192 
in Dominican Republic, 202-12 
forces for, 198 

in Lebanon, 183-90, 210, 211 
lessons of, 188-90,211,212,213, 
214 

and light infantry brigades, 385 
and Special Action Forces, 198-99 
in Thailand, 199-202,210 
use of divisions, 193 
Cordon and sweep 
FM 31-16, 244 
in Korea, 94, 102 
in Philippines, 59-60, 64 
in Vietnam, 391-92 
Corps, U.S. 

IX, 105, 108 

X, 105,106, 109, 113 
“Counter Insurgency Operations: A 

Handbook for the Suppression 
of Communist Guerrilla/ 
Terrorist Operations,” 166 
“Counterguerrilla Operations” 
(Buchanan and Hyatt), 439, 
440, 441,442, 443 
Counterguerrilla warfare, 4, 11, 

24, 174^34, 492. See also 
Counterinsurgency; Field 
Manual 31-15 (1961); 

Field Manual 31-16 (1963 ); 
Field Manual 31-16 (1967); 
Field Manual 31-20 (1951); 
Field Manuals (FMs); 

Tactics; Training, 
and Army schools, 152 
and artillery, 106-07, 245 
and Command and General Staff 
College, 241 

and conventional operations, 486 

exercises, 273-76 

and fire flush technique, 245 

and FM 31-15, 146, 241 

and FM 31-16, 241 

and FM 31-20, 134-42, 146 


Counterguerrilla warfare—Continued 
and FM 100-1, 169 
in FM 100-5 (1962), 240 
and Greek operations, 94 
in Korea, 92, 98-117, 175^42 
libraries on, 259 
McGarr on, 313 
in Malaya, 175^42 
Operations Research Office study 
of, 175^42 

in Philippines, 175^42 
and professional literature, 259 
propaganda campaigns, 116 
and psychological operations, 146 
shift from maneuver to fire, 447 
tactics, 109, 241, 242, 243, 245 
training for, 108, 151-57, 266-76 
troop behavior, 116 
use of devastation tactics, 114, 115 
use of helicopters, 245 
in Vietnam, 310, 311 
Wehnnacht doctrine on, 133 
Williams on, 313 
in World War II doctrine, 10 
Counterinfrastructure operations, 60 
FM 31-23, 428-29 
FM 41-10, 446 
in Korea, 94 

Counterinsurgency, 118, 151,241, 
242, 406-07, 423-24. See also 
Counterguerrilla warfare, 
advice in Thailand, 389 
and AID, 228 
Army approach to, 240 
Combat Developments Command 
reviews, 252 

and conventional warfare, 256 
Counterinsurgency Plan, 314-15 
courses in, 456 
definition, 4, 6 
directives, 268 
doctrine for, 131-71 
downgraded, 478 

education and training in, 151-57, 
216, 260, 262, 266-76, 299, 
316, 480 


547 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Counterinsurgency—Continued 
FM 30-31,447 
FM 31-15 (1961), 236 
and FM 31-22, 248 
FM 31-73, 252 
goals of, 120 

and guerre revolutionnaire, 
180«72, 230, 437 
impact of Mao’s theories on, 26 
Japanese techniques, 56 
joint concept for, 237 
Kennedy’s commitment to, 
227-28 

in Korea, 88, 99, 101 
nature of, 106 

and night training and operations, 
156, 386 

part of stability operations, 251 
phases of, 167-68 
in Philippines, 65 
political considerations of, 225, 
244 

in postwar years, 483 
pre-World War II methods, 9 
program for Latin America, 291 
and Remote Area Conflict Office, 
233 

and School of the Americas, 304 
and Special Doctrine and 
Equipment Group, 233 
taught at Infantry School, 262 
and terminology, 420, 421, 453 
theoretical influences on doctrine 
of, 21-22 

and unity of command, 325 
“Counterinsurgency Planning 
Guide” (Special Warfare 
School), 247 

Counterintelligence, 93, 94 
County fairs (Vietnam), 392 
Crook, General George, 231 
Cuba, 161, 204, 352^1 

De Lattre de Tassigny, General Jean, 
68 

De Lattre Line, 68, 69, 71 


Debray, Regis, 296 

Decker, General George H., 165, 

166, 225,485 

creates Combat Development 
Command, 232 
creates Remote Area Conflict 
Office, 233 
initiatives, 276 

on restructuring Army, 226, 231-32 
and Senior Officer Tour 
Orientation, 257 

Defense Security Assistance Agency, 
478 

“Definitions To Support 

Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” 
420 

Delta Forces (Vietnam), 377 

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), Korea, 
329, 330, 332 

Democratic Front for the Liberation 
of the Fatherland (North 
Korean), 88 

Democratic People’s Army (Greece), 
42, 43 

DePuy, Maj. Gen. William E., 379, 
381 

on defense of Western Europe, 482 
and FM 100-5,481,482 
and “pile on” tactics, 380, 447 

Destruction of property, 20, 114, 

115, 121,253,493 
in Korea, 97, 111, 113, 114, 115, 
116 

in Vietnam, 318, 394, 395, 396 

Diem, Ngo Dinh, 305, 310, 312, 315 
assassination of, 319, 348 
creates Ranger units, 311 
establishes agrovilles, 319 
institutes pao chia system, 307 
reforms of, 307 

Dien Bien Phu, 70, 71-72 

Doctrinal development system, 
231-34 

Doctrine. See also 

Field Manual 31-15 (1961); 
Field Manual 31-16 (1963); 


548 


Index 


Doctrine—Continued 

Field Manual 31-16 (1967); 
Field Manual 31-20 (1951); 
Field Manuals (FMs); France; 
German counterguerrilla 
doctrine; Great Britain; 
Manuals, U.S. Army, 
and adaptation, 383 
Army impacted by changes in, 21 
continuity of, 467, 490 
cordon-and-search operations, 392 
definition of, 4-5 
development of, 5, 131, 240, 
250-56, 422-23 
education and training, 257-66 
and encirclement, 378 
evolution of, 234-50 
evolution of literature, 142-51 
historical influences on, 132-33 
impact of technology on, 231 
and Infantry School, 149 
informal, 5 
and intelligence, 432 
legal, 147 

lessons of Vietnam, 467 
and Overseas Internal Defense 
Policy, 239, 250 
politicization of, 228, 489-90 
and Psychological Warfare Center, 
149 

relationships with civilian 
populations, 110, 147, 389 
for situations short of war, 190- 
99, 218/716 

sources of, 132-33, 229-31 
streamlining, 448 
theoretical influences on, 21 
use of armor, 245-46 
vagueness and ambiguities of, 

349, 370 

Volckmann prepares initial, 131 
weaknesses of, 406, 432 
and Wehrmacht , 229 
World War II and postwar, 8-19, 
117 

Dodds, Col. William A., 101 


Dominican Republic 

Army contingency operations in, 

5, 202-12 

impact on psychological 
operations program, 438 
lessons learned, 212, 213, 214 
marines land in, 203, 204 
Draper, William H., 159 
Draper Committee (President’s 
Committee To Study the U.S. 
Military Assistance Program), 
159-60 

Dubrow, Elbridge, 312, 320 

Eagle flight technique, 150, 314, 376 
Economic Cooperation Administra¬ 
tion (Greece), 49 
Economic Development Corps 
(EDCOR), 64, 65 
Economic Survey Mission 
(Philippines), 61 
Education and training, 

counterinsurgency, 151-57, 
259-76, 455-66 
Egypt, 184 

Eighth U.S. Army in Korea (EUSAK), 
98, 111, 113 
ambush of troops, 330 
develops counterguerrilla tactics, 
108,109 

and rear area security, 103 
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 165, 204, 485 
accepts Draper Committee 
recommendations, 160 
counterinsurgency program for 
Latin America, 291 
efforts to fight communism, 159, 
164 

on mission in Lebanon, 185 
on nuclear warfare, 158, 224 
and small wars, 158, 159, 183 
Eisenhower Doctrine, 184, 187 
Encirclement, 10, 153, 235, 314, 

370, 378, 490 
in Colombia, 299-300 
discussed in FM 31-20, 140, 143 


549 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Encirclement—Continued 
exercises, 266 
in FM 31-16, 244 
in Greece, 52, 54, 121, 300 
in Korea, 95, 97, 105, 300 
in Operation Ratkiller, 125/? 19, 

126/728 
in Peru, 300 
and pile-on tactic, 380 
Pohang Guerrilla Hunt, 105 
used by Japan, 93 
in Vietnam, 317, 323 
Wehrmacht techniques of, 137-38, 
244 

Enclave strategy, 363, 364 
Ewell, Lt. Gen. Julian J., 367 
Exercises 

Devilstrike, 157 
Helping Hand II, 275 
Sherwood Forest, 275 

Fall, Bernard, 230 
Far East Command, 105, 109-10, 
129??64, 

Field Artillery School, 459 
Field Manual 31-15, Operations 
Against Irregular Forces 
(1961), 249-50. See also 
Manuals, U.S. Army, 
civic action, 235, 236 
denial operations, 235 
elimination operations, 235 
encirclement, 235 
and FM 31-20, 246 
harassment operations, 235 
and indoctrination, 236 
and leadership, 236 
military police, 236 
operational principles, 234-35 
pao chia system, 236 
and planning, 236 
reaction operations, 235 
resettlement, 235, 236 
tasks to defeat guerrillas, 234 
training, 236 

treatment of prisoners, 236 


Field Manual 31-15 (1961)— 
Continued 

use of intelligence, 235, 236 
use of police, 235 
use of psyops, 235, 236 
Field Manual 31-16, 

Counterguerrilla Operations 
(1963), 248. See also Cordon 
and sweep; Encirclement, 
advocates small-unit operations, 
243, 244, 246 

and border control operations, 243 

on civic action, 242 

on decentralized nature of, 241 

and FM 31-20, 246 

focuses on internal insurgency, 242 

and harassment campaigns, 243 

and importance of intelligence, 

241, 242 

importance of propaganda, 242, 
244 

political considerations, 244 
and role of armor, 245-46 
similarities to British manuals, 

242, 244 

techniques, 241-44 
use of aircraft, 243 
use of brigades, 241, 242 
use of encirclement, 244 
Field Manual 31-16, 

Counterguerrilla Operations 
(1967). See also Cordon and 
sweep; Encirclement, 
advocates small-unit operations, 
431-32 

differences between conventional 
warfare and phase III 
insurgency, 430 
includes new terminology, 431 
use of brigades, 432 
Field Manual 31—20, Operations 
Against Guerrilla Forces 
(1951), 143, 153, \12n2 
German critique, 145 
importance of continuity, 136 
intelligence, 135 


550 


Index 


Field Manual 31-20 (1951)— 
Continued 
on leadership, 142 
offensive actions, 140 
operations, 137^41 
and plans, 134, 142 
prevention, 134, 142 
propaganda, 135 
psychological warfare, 135 
pursuit, 141 

recommends elite units, 139 
revisions, 252 
three zones, 135-36 
treatment of population, 136, 137, 
142 

Field Manuals (FMs) 

FM 6-20-2, Field Artillery 
Techniques (1970), 447 
FM 7-10, The Rifle Company, 
Platoons, and Squads (1970), 
447 

FM 7-11, Rifle Company, Infan¬ 
try, Airborne, and Mechanized , 
Change 1 (1968), 445 
FM 7-100, The Infantry Division 
(1960), 165, 218/il6 
FM 17-100, The Armored Divi¬ 
sion and Combat Command , 
Change 1 (1959), 194, 219/il6 
FM 19-50, Military Police in 
Stability Operations (1970), 
448, 483 

FM 21-50, Ranger Training 
(1957), 155 

FM 21-50, Ranger Training and 
Ranger Operations (1962), 

272, 273 

FM 21-50, Ranger Operations 
(1969), 446 

FM 21-75, Combat Training of 
the Individual Soldier and 
Patrolling (1962), 272, 432, 447 
FM 21-75, Combat Training of 
Individual Soldiers (1970), 447 
FM 27-5, Basic Field Manual, 
Military Government (1940), 12 


Field Manuals (FMs)—Continued 
FM 27-5, Basic Field Manual, 
Military Government (1943), 

13 

FM 27-5, United States Army and 
Navy Manual of Civil Affairs 
Military Government (1947), 
119-20 

FM 27-10, Rules of Land Warfare 
(1940), 11 

FM 27-10, The Law of Land 
Warfare (1956), 147 
FM 30-5, Combat Intelligence 
(1967), 433 

FM 30-31, Stability Operations — 
Intelligence (1967), 433, 435 
FM 30-31, Stability Operations— 
Intelligence (1970), 447^18, 483 
FM 30-31 A, Stability 
Opera tions—Intell igence 
Collection (1967), 433 
FM 30-102, Aggressor Forces 
(1963), 272 

FM 30-104, Aggressor Insurgent 
War (1961), 465 
FM 31-5, Jungle Operations 
(1969), 446 

FM 31-15, Operations Against 
Airborne Attack, Guerrilla 
Actions, and Infiltration (1953), 
144, 145, 146, 151, 171,234 
FM 31-15, Operations Against 
Irregular Forces (1961), 234, 
241,244, 246,313,425,427 
FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla 
Operations (1963), 241, 242, 
243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 250, 
424,425 

FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla 
Operations (1967), 431-32, 
435, 446-47, 452, 453,483 
FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla 
Operations , Change 2 (1969), 
446^17, 453, 482 
FM 31-1 8 , Long Range Patrols 
(1962, 1965), 272 


551 



Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Field Manuals (FMs)—Continued 
FM 31-18, Long Range Patrol 
Company (1968), 448 
FM 31-20, Operations Against 
Guerrilla Forces (1951), 
134-42, 143, 144, 145, 146, 
150, 151, 153, 162, 171, 172«2, 
197-98,310,316, 491 
FM 31-20, U.S. Army Special 
Forces Group (Airborne) 

(1955), 150, 151 
FM 31-21, Organization and 
Conduct of Guerrilla Warfare 
(1951), 143, 144, 146, 150 
FM 31-21, Guerrilla Warfare 
(1955), 150, 151 
FM 31-21, Guerrilla Warfare 
and Special Forces Operations 
(1958), 151 

FM 31-21, Special Forces Opera¬ 
tions — U.S. Army Doctrine 
(1969), 446 

FM 31-22, U.S. Army Counter¬ 
insurgency Forces (1963), 247, 
248, 249, 424, 425,435,448, 
452 

FM 31-23, Stability Operations: 
US. Army Doctrine (1967), 

424, 427-28, 435, 448, 452 
FM 31-23, Stability Operations: 
U.S. Army Doctrine (1972), 

448, 452 

FM 31-30, Jungle Operations 
(1960), 272 

FM 31-30, Jungle Training and 
Operations (1965), 272 
FM 31-36 (Test), Night 
Operations (1968), 445 
FM 31—55 (Test), Border Security/ 
Anti-Infiltration Operations 
(1968), 445 

FM 31-73, Advisor Handbook for 
Counterinsurgency (1965), 252 
FM 31-73, Advisor Handbook for 
Stability Operations (1967), 

432, 435, 483 


Field Manuals (FMs)—Continued 
FM 31-81 (Test), Base Defense 
(1970), 447 

FM 31-85, Rear Area Protection 
Operations (1970), 447 
FM 33—5, Psychological Warfare 
Operations (1955), 146 
FM 33-5, Psychological Warfare 
Operations (1962), 196, 241 
FM 33—5, Psychological 

Operations—Techniques and 
Procedures (1966), 426 
FM 41-5, Joint Manual for Civil 
Affairs (1966), 426 
FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Military 
Government Operations 
(1957), 147, 148, 149, 151, 

171 

FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Opera¬ 
tions (1962), 196, 240-41 
FM 41-10, Civil Affairs Opera¬ 
tions (1967), 433-34, 439 
FM 41-10, Civil Affairs (1969), 
446 

FM 57-35, Airmobile Operations 
(1960, 1963), 272 
FM 90-8, Counterguerrilla 
Operations (1986), 482 
FM 100-1, Doctrinal Guidance 
(1960), 168 

FM 100-1, Doctrinal Guidance , 
Change 1 (1960), 170, 171 
FM 100-1, Doctrinal Guidance 
(1961), 313 

FM 100-5, Field Service 
Regulations, Operations 
(1949), 10,21, 103 
FM 100-5, Field Service 
Regulations, Operations 
(1952), 143, 144, 145 
FM 100-5, Field Service 
Regulations, Operations 
(1954), 146, 151, 157, 171, 191 
FM 100—5, Field Service Regula¬ 
tions, Operations (1962), 195, 
196, 240 


552 



Index 


Field Manuals (FMs)—Continued 
FM 100-5, Operations of Army 
Forces in the Field (1968), 215, 
445,481,482 

FM 100-5, Operations of Army 
Forces in the Field (1976), 481, 
482 

FM 100-20, Field Service Regula¬ 
tions, Counterinsurgency 
(1964), 249, 250, 425,449 
FM 100—20, Field Service 
Regulations, Internal Defense 
and Development (1967), 424, 
425, 427, 435, 439, 449, 454 
FM 100—20, Field Service 
Regulations: Internal Defense 
and Development (1972), 448, 
452 

FM 100—20, Internal Defense 
and Development, U.S. Army 
Doctrine (1974), 452, 453, 454, 
455, 482 

FM 100-20, Low Intensity 
Conflict (1981), 483 
FM 100-31, Tactical Use of 
Atomic Weapons (1955), 157 
Fighting the Guerrilla Bands 

(Wehrmacht manual), 133, 197 
Firepower. See Airpower; Artillery; 
Harassment and interdiction; 
Rules of engagement. 

Fleet, Sixth. See Sixth Fleet, U.S. 
Flexible response, 224, 225, 485 
Foco theory, 294, 296 
Ford, Gerald R., 485 
Foreign aid, 18 

Foreign Area Officer Program, 479 
Foreign Economic Administration, 

18 

Fort Benning, Georgia, 63, 109, 149, 
264, 268, 273 

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 276 
Civil Affairs Agency at, 424 
Civil Affairs and Security 
Assistance School at, 481 
doctrinal writers at, 150-51 


Fort Bragg, North Carolina— 
Continued 

Military Assistance Officer 
Program at, 479 

military assistance training adviser 
course at, 258 

Psychological Warfare Center at, 
149,150 

Senior Officer Counterinsurgency 
and Special Warfare course at, 
259 

Special Forces officer course at, 
481 

Special Warfare School at, 161, 
257 

France. See also Guerre 

revolutionnaire\ Oil-spot 
method ( tache d’huile). 

counterinsurgency doctrine of, 10, 
149,162,492 

and Indochina, 25, 66, 68, 85, 

162, 230,316 

liaison officers with U.S. Army, 
230, 460 

Free World Military Assistance 
Forces, 408«8 
French and Indian War, 230 
Fu Tso-yi, General, 40, 41 
Funston, Brig. Gen. Frederick, 

81«60 

Gamma Force (Vietnam), 377 
Garcia-Godoy, Hector, 208 
Gavin, James M., 165, 178^60 
General Orders 100, Instructions for 
the Government of Armies of 
the United States in the Field , 
12,39, 401,492 

Geneva Accords of 1954, 71, 199, 
305, 307 

Geneva Convention of 1949, 19-21 

ambiguity of, 20 

defines legitimate belligerents, 

20, 147 

incorporated into Army doctrine, 
147 


553 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Geneva Convention of 1949— 
Continued 

on international law, 19 
and reprisals, 173^15 
soldiers trained in, 403 
treatment of captured guerrillas, 
112, 147 
U.S. ratifies, 20 

German counterguerrilla doctrine 
encirclement techniques of, 244, 
246, 377 

Fighting the Guerrilla Bands , 133, 
197,281«15 

influences Greek doctrine, 44 
influences U.S. doctrine, 133, 138, 
229 

lessons drawn from World War II 
experiences, 132-33, 140, 142, 
146 

used in Vietnam, 377-78 
Germany, occupation of, 15, 16, 17, 18 
Giap, General Vo Nguyen, 68, 70, 
261,461 

Graduated response, 158 
Grady, Henry F., 46, 49 
Gray, Brig. Gen. David W., 188, 189, 
190,194 

Great Britain, 492. See also Conduct 
of Anti-terrorist Operations in 
Malaya. 

counterinsurgency doctrine of, 44, 
52, 149 

and Greek insurgency, 42, 44, 45, 
49, 54 

liaison officers in U.S., 460 
in Malaya, 162, 168, 229 
relationship between British and 
American doctrine, 52, 242, 
244, 248, 314 

Greece, 5, 122, 170, 265, 327, 344, 
348 

and American assistance, 22, 31 
British assistance, 42, 44, 45 
economic relief, 48 
and Home Guard, 50, 54 
insurgency, 42-55 


Greece—Continued 
internal reform, 119 
issue of resettlement, 175^42 
National Defense Corps (NDC), 
49, 50, 52 

use of police forces, 44 
and Truman Doctrine, 45, 486 
Greek National Army (GNA). 

See also Joint U.S. Military 
Advisory and Planning Group, 
draws on British and German 
experience, 44 
improvements in, 48, 53 
operations of, 45, 48, 53, 54 
training of, 48 

Greene, Brig. Gen. Michael J., 481 
Griswold, Dwight P., 46, 51 
Guatemala, 298, 300, 350 
accepts U.S. civic action 
assistance, 161 
and human rights, 302 
Guerre revolutionnaire , 163, 
180^72, 230, 437. See also 
Counterinsurgency; Doctrine; 
France. 

Guerrilla warfare, 4. See also 
Counterguerrilla warfare; 

Field Manual 31-15 (1961); 
Field Manual 31-16 (1963); 
Field Manual 31-16 (1967); 
Field Manual 31-20 (1951); 
Field Manuals (FMs); Geneva 
Convention of 1949. 
and civilian support, 146 
destruction of, 363 
forms of, 134 

German “Werewolf” movement, 
9, 133 

in Korea, 100 

legal status of, 11, 19, 20, 112 
Mao develops strategies for rural, 
24 

nature of, 118 
treatment of, 19, 112 
Guerrilla Warfare, On (Guevara), 
229, 294 


554 


Index 


Guevara, Ernesto “Che,” 229, 294, 300 
Guillen, Abraham, 296 
Gurney, Sir Henry, 279«3 

Hackworth, Col. David H., 375 
Haines, Lt. Gen. Ralph E., 455 
Haines Board, 455, 456, 457, 460 
Haider, General Franz, 145, 174«32 
Hamlet festival. See County fairs 
(Vietnam). 

Harassment and interdiction, 244- 
45, 382 

Harriman, Averell, 458 
Health programs. See Medical Civic 
Action Program (MEDCAP). 
Hearts and minds, 279^3, 349, 402, 
436, 493 

Hee, Park Chung, 329 
Helicopters, 21, 143, 150, 155, 378 
in Korea, 115 
Van Fleet and, 52 
in Vietnam, 245, 315 
Ho Chi Minh, 25, 66, 370 
on guerrilla warfare, 24 
impact on Thai Communist Party, 
335 

uses Mao’s methods, 68 
Hobbs, Maj. Gen. Leland S., 59, 60 
Hodge, Lt. Gen. John R., 86 
Holliday, Col. Sam C., 461 
Holloway, Adm. James L., Jr., 184, 
188, 189 

Homeland Defense Reserve (South 
Korea), 334 

Howze, Lt. Gen. Hamilton H., 268 
Hughes, Maj. David R., 420, 421 
Huks, 62, 66, 82«63, 229, 309. See 
also Philippines. 

and Barrio United Defense Corps, 
56, 58 

growth of, 58, 61 
rehabilitation of, 60, 64 
use of terror, 58 

Humanitarian activities. See Hearts 
and minds; Medical Civic 
Action Program (MEDCAP). 


Humphrey, Hubert H., 224 
Huntington, Samuel P, 292 
Hyatt, Lt. Col. Robert A., 439, 440, 
441 

“Implementing Actions for 

Anti-Guerrilla Operations” 
(McGarr), 313 
Inch’on, landing at, 99, 105 
Indochina, 5, 31, 61, 85, 230 
Indochina War (1945-1954), 66-73, 
162, 163, 230, 305 
Indonesia, 329 
Infantry, 65th, 154 
Infantry Agency, 233 
Infantry Division, 25th, 105, 106, 
107, 108, 157 

combined intelligence center in 
Vietnam, 373 

counterinsurgency school, 270 
develops Combined 

Reconnaissance Intelligence 
Platoon, 376 
exercises, 275 
and incoming troops, 463 
in Thailand, 200, 201 
Infantry divisions 

1st, 379, 383, 384, 386 
2d, 276 
3d, 105, 154 
4th, 401,462, 463 
7th, 105, 114, 270 
9th, 376, 385 
Infantry Journal, 436 
Infantry School, Fort Benning, 230, 
264, 269 

curriculum, 152, 260, 262, 263, 
459-60 

lessons from Vietnam, 461 
and production of counter¬ 
insurgency manual, 132, 134 
Influences, limitations of U.S., 66, 
239, 347, 348, 349. See also 
Leverage. 

Institute for Advanced Studies, 
Carlisle Barracks, 233, 249 


555 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Institute for Military Assistance, 

424,443 

Institute of Strategic and Stability 
Operations, 424 

Intelligence, 72, 144, 229, 234, 254, 
446 

combined centers, 373 
in early operations, 8 
in FM 31-16, 241-12 
in FM 31-20, 135, 143 
and FM 100-20, 427 
in Greece, 48 
guerrilla efforts in, 242 
personnel deployment, 161 
in Vietnam, 372 

Inter-American Peacekeeping Force 
(IAPF), 209 

Interagency Working Group for 
Psychological Operations in 
Critical Areas, 438 
Internal defense, 420, 422 
Internal Defense and Development 
(IDAD), 420, 422, 453, 454, 
460 

in Army doctrine, 467 
and FM 19-50 (1970), 483 
and FM 30-31 (1970), 483 
and FM 31-16, 483 
and FM 31-73 (1967), 483 
and FM 100-5, 482 
and FM 100-20 (1981), 482 
Internal Defense and Development 
Field Office, 469^8 
Internal development, 420, 422 
International Cooperation Agency, 
159 

International law, 11, 19, 492, 493 
International Police Academy 
(Washington, D.C.), 298 
Iran, 197, 349 

accepts civic action assistance, 

161 

civil action of military, 328 
Literacy, Sanitary and Health, and 
Rural Development Corps, 328 
and modernization program, 329 


Iraq, 184 

Janowitz, Morris, 292 
Japan, 226 

counterinsurgency techniques of, 
56, 58, 95 

invasion of China, 31, 32 
occupation of, 15, 16, 17, 19 
John F. Kennedy Institute for 
Military Assistance, Fort 
Bragg, 481 

Johns, Lt. Col. John H., 438, 443, 444 
Johnson, General Harold K., 214, 
383, 424, 489 

Army doctrine program, 419, 427, 
435, 442 

Army school system, 457 
on “Counterguerrilla Operations,” 
441,442 

and counterinsurgency doctrine, 
251,252 

establishes Overseas Security 
Operations (OSO), 442, 443 
and General Orders 100, 492 
initiates “Refining the Army’s 
Role in Stability Operations” 
(“REARM-STABILITY”), 442 
and intelligence, 472^54 
interrelationship of psyops and 
civil affairs, 437, 442 
and Palmer, 256 

and policies in Vietnam, 371, 372 
and stability operations, 251, 253, 
427, 437, 438 

terminology for counterinsurgency, 
420, 421,453 
Johnson, John L., 292 
Johnson, Lyndon B., 277-78, 323- 
24, 399,419, 494 
and Dominican Republic, 202, 
203-04, 208 
Joint Chiefs of Staff 

and Alliance for Progress, 292-93 
on China, 41 

lessons learned in Dominican 
Republic, 212 


556 


Index 


Joint Chiefs of Staff—Continued 
and military assistance program, 
161 

and national counterinsurgency 
program, 237, 239 
and Overseas Internal Defense 
Policy, 238, 239 
and Vietnam, 307 
“Joint Counterinsurgency Concept 
and Doctrinal Guidance,” 237 
Joint Task Force 116, 200, 202 
Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group 
(JUSMAG), Philippines, 61, 

63, 64, 81^60 
on Armed Forces of the 
Philippines, 65 

limited to logistical assistance, 

59 

and Magsaysay, 62 
and troop conduct, 60 
Joint U.S. Military Advisory and 
Planning Group (JUSMAPG), 
Greece, 47^8, 49,51,54, 63 
Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group 
(JUSMAG), Thailand, 339, 340 
Judge Advocate General's School, 
459 

Kennan, George, 349 
Kennedy, John F., 171, 223, 261, 

276, 348, 488, 494 
and Counterinsurgency Plan, 314, 
315 

and counterinsurgency training, 
260 

expands foreign aid programs, 224 
initiates military buildup, 224 
interest in elite forces, 488 
interest in flexible military forces, 
195, 244, 485 
and Latin America, 292 
on Maoist revolutionary warfare, 
224,238 

and Peace Corps, 224 
program to fight communism, 

223,224 


Kennedy, John F.—Continued 
and Reorganization Objective 
Army Division, 224 
and Rostow’s theories, 164, 224 
on Vietnam, 307, 315 
on wars of national liberation, 486 
Khrushchev, Nikita, 25, 223, 278 
Kim II Sung, 86, 88, 98, 329, 330, 
334 

Kinnard, Lt. Gen. Harry W. O., 423 

Kissinger, Henry, 158 

Kit Carson Scouts (Vietnam), 

376-77 

KM AG. See Korean Military 

Assistance Group (KMAG). 
Komer, Robert W., 321, 399 
Korea. See Republic of Korea (ROK). 
Korean Civil War, 85-122. See 

also Cheju-do, Korea; Korean 
Military Assistance Group 
(KMAG). 

politico-military elements of, 89, 
90, 91, 116 ’ 
resettlement, 175«42 
tactics used in, 94, 95, 97 
U.S. role in, 5 
use of pao chia system, 93 
Korean Communications Zone, 104 
Korean Constabulary, 88 
Korean Military Assistance Group 
(KMAG), 88, 90, 93, 113,333. 
See also Cheju-do, Korea; 
Korean Civil War. 
and combat police, 102 
guidelines for antiguerrilla 
training, 91-93 
plans for Winter Punitive 
Operation, 96, 97 
and politico-military campaign, 91 
on ROK performance, 98 
and seasonal operations, 95 
Krulak, Maj. Gen. Victor H., 227, 
485 

Kuomintang Party (Nationalist 
Chinese), 31 
Ky, Nguyen Cao, 346 


557 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Land reform 
in Iran, 329 

in Korea, 89, 90, 117, 329 
in Philippines, 64, 65 
in South Vietnam, 307, 324, 325-26 
Lansdale, Maj. Gen. Edward G., 63, 
160, 281«16, 458 
and Magsaysay, 62 
and South Vietnam, 309, 318 
Laos, 66, 68, 363. See also White 
Star Mobile Training Teams, 
civil war in, 202 
Communist victory in, 344 
and Geneva Accords, 71, 199, 201 
military assistance group for, 199 
and North Vietnam, 202, 305 
role of Central Intelligence 
Agency, 202 

Soviet aid for Pathet Lao, 200, 202 
U.S. aids, 200, 339 
Latin America, 349 

assistance and counterinsurgency 
program for, 291-304 
and revolutionary movements, 

294, 296, 298 

Latin American Special Action 
Force, 298 

Leadership, 120, 142, 348, 405 
in Greece, 47 
in Philippines, 59 
stressed in FM 31-15 (1961), 

236 

in Vietnam, 405 
Volckmann on, 142 
Lebanese-American Civil Affairs 
Commission, 188 
Lebanon 

Army contingency operations in, 

5, 183-90 

marines land at Beirut, 186 
U.S. mission in, 185, 219^16 
Legal aspects of counterinsurgency. 
See Geneva Convention of 
1949; Guerrilla warfare; 
Population; Prisoners; Rules of 
engagement; Troop conduct. 


Lemnitzer, General Lyman L., 162, 
227, 485 
Lessons learned 

in Dominican Republic, 211,212, 
213,214 

in Philippines, 265, 299 
from Vietnam, 467, 483 
Leverage, 66, 239, 347-48 
Limited war theory, 158-59, 483-84 
Linebarger, Maj. Paul, 162 
Listen to Me units (Korea), 91 
Livesay, Maj. Gen. William G., 46, 
47, 49,51,59 
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 321 
Logistics 
in China, 37 

in Dominican Republic, 211, 212 
in Greece, 46 
in Lebanon, 189 
in Philippines, 59, 63 
in Vietnam, 383, 384, 386 
Long-range reconnaissance patrol 
(LRRP), 376, 445 
Lovett, Robert, 49 

Low Intensity Conflict (LIC), 4, 421, 
422 

MacArthur, General Douglas, 15 
McClintock, Robert M., 184, 187, 
188 

McClure, Brig. Gen. Robert A., 149, 
150 

McCuen, Col. John J., 461 
McGarr, Lt. Gen. Lionel C., 313, 
314,321 

McGhee, Col. John H., 109 
McGiffert, David E., 439 
McKean, Col. William A., 200 
McNamara, Robert S., 276, 292, 

294, 399, 486 
MacVeagh, Lincoln, 46 
Magsaysay, Ramon, 119, 239 
and civic action, 63, 64 
and Lansdale, 62 
politico-military offensive, 64 
reforms of, 65, 329 


558 


Index 


Mahan, Dennis Hart, 375 
Malaya, 61, 162, 168, 180//70, 

229, 265, 279/73, 361. See 
also Conduct of Anti-terrorist 
Operations in Malay a \ Great 
Britain. 

Manuals, U.S. Army. See also Field 
Manuals (FMs). 

Army branch schools, 131, 250 
and Combat Developments 
Command, 232, 252 
consolidation of, 150, 151,448, 
452 

production procedures of, 250, 
423 

ROTC manual 145-60, Small 
Unit Tactics , Including 
Communications , 152 
Special Text (ST) 31-20-1, 
“Operations Against Guerrilla 
Forces,” 134, 142, 152 
and Special Warfare Agency, 233 
Training Text 7-100-2, “The 
Infantry Division” (1957), 
218-19/216 
Mao Tse-tung, 229 

Army institutions read works of, 
261, 461 

and Chinese Civil War, 31-42 
defeats Chiang Kai-shek, 24, 25, 
61 

Greeks refer to, 42, 52, 58 
Ho Chi Minh uses methods of, 68 
impact on Thai Communist Party, 
335 

on importance of political 
considerations, 26, 36 
“little red book,” 25 
and rules of conduct, 403 
theories of, 23, 24, 25, 36, 52, 58, 
253, 254, 361 

U.S. concern with theories, 163, 
224,225 

Marighella, Carlos, 296, 461 
Marine Division, 1st, 105. See also 
U.S. Marine Corps. 


Marines, 2d, 184 
Marshall, George C., 22, 74/? 7 
and China, 32, 38 
on Greek insurgency, 51 
Marshall Plan, 22, 45, 118, 159, 292 
Martin, Graham, 340 
Medical Civic Action Program 
(MEDCAP), 317, 350, 398 
Merrill’s Marauders, 109 
Michigan State University, 312 
Miles, General Nelson, 372 
Military assistance, 23, 161, 167. 
See also Draper Committee, 
focus on internal security, 166 
review of, 159-60 
Military Assistance Advisory Group 
(MAAG), Vietnam, 309, 310, 
315 

assigns advisers to South 
Vietnamese battalions, 317 
constraints on, 311 
develops counterguerrilla training 
program, 311 

role in nation building, 450 
Military Assistance Command, 
Thailand (MACTHAI), 339, 
341 

Military Assistance Command, 
Vietnam (MACV), 229, 323, 
371, 373, 388 
and artillery, 317 
and Civil Operations and 
Revolutionary Development 
Support, 325, 367 
and combat units, 316, 369 
comprehensive reporting system, 
387 

created, 315 

and destruction tactics, 396, 402 
and intelligence, 372 
and MAAG, Vietnam, 315 
and nation building, 387, 388 
night operations, 386 
offensive operations, 366 
operational categories, 369 
pacification, 324, 387, 388, 389 


559 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam (MACV)—Continued 
on prioritization of effort, 320 
rules of engagement, 401, 402 
saturation patrols, 370 
timing of operations, 393-94 
troop assignment, 390 
and troop conduct in SOPs and 
training, 403 

Military Assistance Institute, 257 
Military Assistance Officer Program 
(MAOP), 442, 443,451 
and Haines Board, 455 
role in nation building, 450 
as social engineers, 444 
training, 479 

Military assistance training adviser 
(MATA) course, 257-58 
Military government, 11, 19, 28/713, 
492. See also Civil affairs, 
and FM 41-10, 148 
in Germany, 14, 15, 17, 18 
in Japan, 14, 15, 18 
in Korea, 89 
principles of, 12, 112 
proposed for China, 39, 41 
Military law, 11 
Military Provincial Hospital 
Program, 398 
Military Review , 442 
Militia, 168. See also Paramilitary 
forces. 

in Greece, 49 
in Korea, 93 
in Philippines, 63 
Miller, Col. Jesse, 13 
Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla 
(Marighella), 461 
Miyagishima, Lt. Tero, 94 
Mobile Guerrilla Forces, 377 
Molina Urena, Jose Rafael, 203 
Montagnards, 315, 316, 429 
Murphy, Robert, 188 
Mutual Defense Assistance 

Program, 23. See also Military 
assistance. 


Mutual Security Act of 1959, 160 

Nation building 

Army attitude toward, 451 
and communism, 225 
complexity of, 450 
and counterinsurgency program, 
237, 238, 253-54 
doctrine of, 22 
Dubrow on, 320 
efforts in Vietnam, 321 
and institution building, 443 
and MACV, 387 
part of stability operations, 251 
postwar, 15, 16, 18, 19, 118, 
435-45, 487 

role of military, 160, 467 
role in U.S. policy, 452 
in Thailand, 337 
theory of, 345 

“Nation Building Contributions of 
the Army (NABUCA)” (Johns), 
443^45 

National Interdepartmental Seminar 
(State Department), 257 
National Police (Korea), 88, 93, 94, 
101 

National Popular Liberation Army 
(ELAS) (Greece), 42 
National Repentance Alliance 
(Korea), 90-91 
National Security Action 

Memorandums, 227, 260 
National Security Council, 161-62 
call for new doctrine, 168 
publishes Overseas Internal 
Defense Policy, 238, 239 
NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization (NATO). 

Navarre, Lt. Gen. Henri-Eugene, 69, 
70, 83/778 

Navarre plan, 70, 71-72, 83/778 
Net and spear, 313-14, 369 
Night operations, 156, 170 
British use of, 243 
in Greece, 44 


560 


Index 


Night operations—Continued 
and Infantry School, 263 
in Korea, 99, 108, 122 
in Philippines, 59-60 
in Vietnam, 322, 386, 465 
Volckmann on, 138, 139, 141 
Nixon, Richard M., 366, 449, 485 
Nixon Doctrine, 449, 451, 477 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization 
(NATO), 22, 482 
North Korean People’s Army, 98, 
99-100 

North Vietnam 

in South Vietnam, 324, 327 
supports Viet Cong, 305, 323, 
357^65, 378 

Norton, Brig. Gen. John, 265 

Occupation 

approaches to, 16, 19 
of Germany, 14-16, 17-18 
of Japan, 14-16, 17, 19 
of North Africa, 14 
O’Daniel, Lt. Gen. John W., 83«78, 
307-08, 309 

Office of the Adjutant General, 232 
Office of the Assistant Chief of 
Staff for Force Development 
(OACSFOR), 232 
Office of Civil Affairs and Military 
Government, 175^42 
Office of the Deputy Chief of 

Staff for Military Operations 
(ODCSOPS), 420, 438, 450, 
451 

paper on counterinsurgency, 
166-71 

prepares “The United States 
Army’s Role in Nation 
Building,” 449-50 

Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 9 
Officer’s Call , 142 
Oil-spot method (tache d’huile), 66, 
170, 313 

in South Vietnam, 362 

and Strategic Hamlet Program, 319 


Okinawa, 257 
Olson, Col. John A., 201 
Operation Ratkiller (December 
1951-March 1952), 96, 101 
and resettlement, 102 
use of encirclement, 125^19, 
126^28 

use of propaganda leaflets, 116 
Operations 

Houseburner I, 1 15 
Houseburner II, 115 
Mongoose (July-August 1952), 96 
Trample, 129«61 
Organization of American States 
(OAS), 205, 208, 209 
Organizational adaptation in 
Vietnam, 382-85. See also 
Logistics. 

Osgood, Robert, 158, 195, 486 
Overseas Internal Defense Policy 
(OIDP), 238-39, 249, 250 
Overseas Security Operations (OSO) 
program, 442. See also Military 
Assistance Officer Program 
(MAOP). 

Pacification, 11, 167, 174^34,429, 
451,492 
Abrams on, 367 
Civil Operations and 

Revolutionary Development 
Support, 325 
and combat units, 390 
defined, 4, 387 
doctrine, 21-22, 389 
early operations, 8, 18 
in FM 31-20, 135 
impact of Tet on, 367 
in Korea, 334 

and politico-military connectivity, 
388-89 

use of Vietnamese soldiers for, 

391 

in Vietnam, 307, 324, 366, 367, 
387-405 

village searches, 390-91 


561 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Palmer, Lt. Gen. Bruce, Jr., 204, 
205,209, 439, 441 
on counterinsurgency doctrine, 256 
in Dominican Republic, 207-08, 
213-14 

on military policemen, 212 
Panama Canal Zone, U.S. training 
courses at, 257 
Pao chi a 

neighborhood watch system, 40, 
56, 93 

in South Vietnam, 307 
Papagos, Field Marshal Alexander, 
53, 54, 119 

Parallel hierarchies, Communist 
system of, 436 

Paramilitary forces, 121, 126^28, 
167, 490 

advisers assist, 401 
and FM 31-22, 248, 249 
and pacification, 325 
in Thailand, 337 
in Vietnam, 307, 312-13, 318 
Partido Revolucionario Dominicano 
(PRD), 203 
Pathet Lao. See Laos. 

Patrolling, 375-76, 379 
Peacekeeping, lack of doctrine on, 
215 

Pearson, Brig. Gen. Willard, 375, 
411/134 

Pentomic division, 158, 224, 485 
People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) 
(North Vietnam), 370-71 
People’s Liberation Army (Chinese), 
100 

People’s Self-Defense Force, 401 
Perham, Col. Wendell W., 175«42 
Pershing, John J., 231 
Peru, 298, 300, 302 
Philippine Constabulary, 56, 58, 59 
Philippine Scouts, 109 
Philippine War (1899-1902), 63, 
81^60, 82>?63, 391 
Philippines, 5, 15, 31, 85, 122, 348, 
361. See also Fluks. 


Philippines—Continued 

Armed Forces of the Philippines 
(AFP), 61, 63 
and corruption, 329 
and hostage taking, 56 
and infantry action, 72 
insurgency, 55-66 
internal reform, 119, 329 
and Japanese occupation, 56 
lessons learned in, 265 
Military Police Command, 56 
resettlement, 65, 175/742 
and Scout Ranger force, 62 
and Volckmann, 131-32 
Phoenix program (Vietnam), 325 
Plan Lazo (Colombia), 299-300 
Pogap (Korea), 94 
Pohang Guerrilla Hunt, 105 
Police, 120, 121, 144, 191, 234, 242, 
254,325 

deployments in Dominican 
Republic, 212 
in Greece, 52 
indigenous forces, 228 
in Korea, 88, 89, 93, 94, 101, 102, 
104, 116, 126/728, 333 
termination of police assistance 
program, 477 

in Thailand, 335, 337, 338, 339 
in Vietnam, 312, 315, 316, 318 
Popular Forces (South Vietnam), 

316. See also Self-Defense 
Corps (South Vietnam). 
Population 
Haider on, 145 
role of, 144, 151 
treatment of, 148 
Population and resource control, 

167, 254, 393 
approaches to, 389-90 
in FM 31-16, 242 
in FM 31-20, 136, 148 
in FM 41-10, 148 
in Greece, 50, 51, 54 
in Korea, 116 
in Malaya, 229 


562 



Index 


Population and resource control— 
Continued 

U.S. soldiers implement, 393 
Population security. See Security. 
Prisoners 

legal status of, 147 
in Philippines, 60, 63 
in South Korea, 1 12, 126/731, 
128//60 

treatment of, 253, 403 
Program for Analysis and 
Development of U.S. 
Counterinsurgency Doctrine 
(Combat Developments 
Command), 252, 419 
“Program for the Pacification and 
Long-Term Development 
of South Vietnam, A” 
(“PROVN”), 371, 441 
Propaganda, 144, 167, 168, 242, 
486 

Provost Marshal General, Military 
Government Division, 

13-14 

Provost Marshal General’s school at 
Camp Gordon, 152 
Psychological operations (psyops), 
144, 169, 227, 229, 438 
consolidation of, 117, 146, 152, 

175«35 

and cordon-and-search operations, 
392 

in Dominican Republic, 209-10, 
212 

exercises, 266 

in FM 31-20, 135 

and FM 33-5 (1955), 146 

lack of attention to, 212, 215 

personnel, 161, 196 

and situations short of war, 196 

training for, 108 

in Vietnam, 317 

“Psychological Operations—Role 
in Establishing a Sense of 
Nationhood” (“Psyop-Reason”) 
(Johns), 438, 439 


Psychological Warfare Center, Fort 
Bragg, 149, 150. See also Field 
Manuals (FMs). 

Pueblo , U.S. Navy intelligence ship, 
334 

Pusan, Korea, 99 

Pusan Perimeter, 102, 105, 115 

Pye, Lucien W., 256 

Quirino, Elpidio, 56, 58, 59, 61 

RAND Corporation, 436 
Rangers, 11, 21, 479. See also Long- 
range reconnaissance patrol 
(LRRP). 

FM 21-50, 155 

Ranger Training Command, 109, 
479 

training for all Regular Army 
officers, 155, 273 
in Vietnam, 376 

Rear area security, 103, 108, 109 
“REARM-STABILITY” study, 442, 
443 

Reconnaissance in force, 431 
Red River Delta (Vietnam), 68, 69, 
70 

Reform. See also Land reform. 
American ideal, 8, 17 
in China, 32, 37, 41 
in early operations, 8 
goals of, 15, 16, 17,58, 72 
in Korea, 89, 119, 329 
in Philippines, 58, 59, 61, 64 
Regional Assistance Commands 
(RACs), 216, 441,442, 479 
Regional Forces (South Vietnam), 
316, 390. See also Civil Guard 
(South Vietnam). 

Reid Cabral, Donald, 203 
Relocation. See Resettlement. 
Remote Area Conflict Office, 233 
Reorganization Objective Army 
Division (ROAD), 383, 384- 
85,485 


563 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Republic of Korea (ROK), 5, 24, 61, 
86, 122. See also Cheju-do, 
Korea. 

Army regulations, 90 
Chiri mountain region, 86 
Combat Police Commands, 102 
Communists, 99, 100, 103 
counterguerrilla operations, 
98-102 

counterinsurgency efforts of, 88, 
99, 332, 333 

Demilitarized Zone, 329, 330, 332 
Homeland Defense Reserve, 334 
Inch’on landing, 99, 103 
internal reform, 119, 329 
Japanese colony, 85 
Northern infiltration and 
incursions into, 329-30, 332 
Odae mountain region, 86 
Pusan Perimeter, 99, 102 
Security Commands, 102 
Taebaek mountain region, 86 
Republic of Korea Army, 327 
III Corps secures South Korea, 

105 

and counterguerrilla operations, 
101-02 

regulations, 90 
subordinated to American 
command, 100 

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps 
(ROTC), 152 

Resettlement, 168, 169, 175«42. See 
also Strategic Hamlet Program, 
doctrine, 493 
and FM 31-20, 136 
in FM 31-22, 249 
in FM 31-73,252 
in FM 41-10, 149 
in Greece, 149 
impact of, 97-98 
in Korea, 97, 102, 116, 149 
in Philippines, 65, 175^42 
in Thailand, 337 
in Vietnam, 318, 394 
Resor, Stanley R., 444 


Revolution of rising expectations, 
164, 165,225,249, 268, 345, 
346, 494. See also Rostow, 

Walt W. 

Revolutionary Development program 
(Vietnam), 324 

Rhee, Singman, 86, 90, 91, 98, 100, 
124/113 

Richardson, Maj. Gen. James L., 

200, 201 

Ridgway, Lt. Gen. Matthew B., 113, 
307, 350 

Riggs, Maj. Robert B., 104 
Riverine operations, 385, 445 
Roberts, Brig. Gen. William L., 90, 
124/113 

Rogers, Robert, 231 
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 18 
Roper, Maj. Gen. Harry M., 175^42 
Rosson, Brig. Gen. William B., 227 
Rostow, Walt W., 258, 292, 435, 
439-40, 486 

and Kennedy administration, 224 
theory of “revolution of rising 
expectations,” 164, 165, 225, 
249, 345, 346, 494 
and Vietnam, 315 
Rotation policy, 347, 465-66 
Roxas, Manuel, 56, 58 
Royall, Kenneth C., 49, 14nl 
Rules of engagement 

in Dominican Republic, 206-07 
in Lebanon, 186-87 
in Vietnam, 401-02 
Russian Civil War, 41 

Sandinista Revolution, 298 
Santo Domingo, Dominican 

Republic, 203,206, 209,210. 
See also Dominican Republic. 
School of the Americas, 304, 459 
School for Military Government, 12, 
13, 15 

Search and clear, 462 
Search and destroy 
in Korea, 95 


564 



Index 


Search and destroy—Continued 
and Special Activities Group, 109 
terminology, 431 
in Vietnam, 368, 373, 375, 462 
Security 

essential to pacification, 325 
importance of, 214, 490 
internal, 166, 312 
of lines of communications, 103, 
205 

of local populations, 50, 148, 367, 
401 

of rear areas, 103, 109, 155 
in Thailand, 337, 343 
village, 54, 401 

Security Commands (Korea), 102 
Security Training Assistance Group, 
401 

Self-Defense Corps (South 
Vietnam), 308, 312, 316 
Senior Officer Orientation Tour 
program, 257-58 

Shihab, General Fuad, 184, 187, 188 
Shingler, Brig. Gen. Don G., 160 
Sigma Force (Vietnam), 377 
Silva, Peer de, 341 
Situations short of war, 4, 216, 217, 
422, 485 

and civilian policy makers, 206 
in Cold War, 195 
at Command and General Staff 
College, 152-53 
defined, 191 

doctrine, 190-99, 215, 218/716 
in FM 100-5 (1962), 240 
and Lebanon, 193-94, 196 
minimum force principle, 207 
part of stability operations, 251 
and political considerations, 194, 
195 

Sixth Fleet, U.S., 185 
Slover, Col. Robert H., 160 
Small wars, 8, 159 
South Korea. See Republic of Korea 
(ROK). 

South Korean Labor Party (SKLP), 86 


South Vietnam, 229, 349, 357^65. 
See also Military Assistance 
Command, Vietnam (MACV). 
administration of, 326 
Army Concept Team, 229 
devastation as tactic, 394 
and Diem assassination, 348 
enclave concept, 364, 365 
and Geneva Accords, 71 
and Military Assistance 
Command, Vietnam, 229 
offensive-defensive strategy, 364 
oil-spot theory, 362 
overrun by North Vietnam, 

327-28 

reforms, 325-26 
resettlement, 394 
U.S. Army in, 361-407 

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization 
(SEATO), 200 

Southern Security Command 
(Korea), 101, 104 

Special Action Forces (SAF), 247 
FM 31-22, 248 
formed, 225, 277 
mission, 198-99 
organizational problems of, 216 
Strategic Army Corps backup 
brigades, 199, 225,247 
training, 268 

Special Doctrine and Equipment 
Group, Fort Bel voir, 233. 

Special Forces, 21, 161, 166, 227, 
489 

and doctrine, 251 
in Dominican Republic, 208 
increase in, 225, 277 
in Laos, 200 

and Montagnards, 316, 429 
personnel, 216, 315 
and Psychological Warfare Center, 
149 

reduced, 479 

and Strategic Army Study, 1970, 
166 

training, 268, 311 


565 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Special Forces—Continued 
in urban areas, 446 
in Vietnam, 315 

Special Forces Group, 8th, 298, 
478-79 

Special Group (Counterinsurgency), 
227, 228, 239, 348 
Special Operations Research Office, 
256 

Special Warfare Agency, Fort Bragg, 
255, 424-25, 430 
and counterinsurgency doctrine, 
233 

FM 31-22, 247 
FM 31-23, 427 
and redundancy, 425 
relations with Infantry Agency, 
233 

Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, 
227, 442-^3 

Special Warfare and Civil Affairs 
Group, 253, 254-55, 423 
Special Warfare Division, 168 
Special Warfare Group, 233 
Special Warfare School, Fort Bragg, 
230 

“Counterinsurgency Planning 
Guide,” 247 

course at, 161, 259, 456 
and military assistance training 
adviser course, 258 
training at, 257 
Spectrum of war, 195 
Stability operations, 4, 7, 450, 452, 
481 

doctrine, 215 
experts in, 438 

and Johnson, 214, 251, 421-22 
and Nixon Doctrine, 451 
organizational approach to, 216 
terminology, 453 
third principle mission of Army, 
252, 439 

Stages of Economic Growth: A Non- 
Communist Manifesto, The 
(Rostow), 164 


Stilwell, Lt. Gen. Richard G., 260, 
371,480 

Strategic Army Corps (STRAC), 216 
in Dominican Republic, 204 
formed, 198 

merged into Strike Command, 198 
and Special Action Forces, 199 
Taylor recommends, 159 
“Strategic Army Study, 1970” 
(STARS-70), 165, 166, 167 
Strategic Assessment Group, 478 
Strategic Hamlet Program, 319 
Strategy: The Vietnam War in 

Context, On (Summers), 483 
Strike Command (STRICOM), 198 
Strike operations, 431 
Stuart, J. Leighton, 33, 37, 39, 41 
Summers, Col. Harry G., Jr., 483 
Syria, 184 

Tache d'huile. See Oil-spot method 
{tache d’huile). 

Tactics 

American, 93, 108, 121, 380-81 
of Army of Republic of Korea, 89, 
90, 93 

clear and hold, 314 
cordon and sweep, 244 
counterguerrilla, 104-05, 109, 

115, 131 

counterinsurgency, 113 
devastation, 395 
eagle flight, 314 
encirclement, 140, 244 
fire flush, 244^15 
fire and maneuver, 380 
fragmenting the disc, 244 
hammer and anvil, 244 
infantry, 97 
linear, 244, 323 
net and spear, 369 
North Korean, 99 
pacification, 311-12 
pile on, 380, 381 
rabbit hunt, 244 
saturation, 370, 371, 379 


566 


Index 


Tactics—Continued 
semi-guerrilla, 375 
static security. 311-12 
stay behind, 386 
surprise, 141, 386 
tightening the noose, 244 
Tactics and Techniques of 

Counterinsurgent Operations , 
314 

“Tactics and Techniques for 

Employment of U.S. Forces 
in the Republic of Vietnam” 
(DePuy), 378 
Taiwan, 41 

Taruc, Maj. Gen. Luis M., 58, 64 
Taylor, General Maxwell D., Ill, 
160, 165, 190, 485 
and Army reorganization, 227 
on small wars, 158-59, 161 
on U.S. role in Vietnam, 315, 364, 
384, 389 
Terror, 20 
in Greece, 51 
in Korea, 89 
in Latin America, 302 
in Philippines, 58, 65 
U.S. doctrine on, 493 
used by Viet Cong, 307 
Tet offensive, 324, 390 

impact on North Vietnamese, 
366-67 

and officer education, 461 
U.S. approach after, 367 
Thailand, 199-202, 342-43, 349, 

350 

Accelerated Rural Development 
program, 337 
Border Patrol Police, 337 
civic action in, 201-02, 337 
Civilian-Police-Military program, 
335 

Communist Party of, 335, 337, 344 
Communist Suppression 
Operations Command, 337 
Department of Community 
Development, 337 


Thailand—Continued 
ethnic minorities of, 335 
and Joint Military Assistance 
Command, Thailand 
(MACTHAI), 339 
and Joint Military Assistance 
Group, 339, 340 
Joint Security Centers, 337 
lessons, 447 

Mobile Development Units, 337 
modernization, 335 
National Police, 337 
National Security Command of, 
335-36 

pacification, 400 
resettlement, 337 
Royal Thai Army, 337 
Special Operations Centers, 337 
U.S. deploys forces to, 200 
Tiger Scouts (Vietnam), 376, 377 
Tito, Marshal Josep, 53 
Torture 

and Geneva Convention, 19 
in Korea, 89 
in Latin America, 302 
in Philippines, 58 
and U.S. doctrine, 147, 493 
Training, 257-66, 462-66 
for counterinsurgency and 

counterguerrilla warfare, 151- 
57, 175^35 
exercises, 274-75 
FM 30-104, 465 
and night combat, 156, 465 
Ranger, 110, 155, 157 
realistic, 465 

of South Vietnamese forces, 316 
system, 266-76 
U.S., 108 

Training and Doctrine Command, 
423, 482 

Training of foreign forces in counter¬ 
insurgency, 298, 311, 444 
Transportation companies 
8th, 315 
57th, 315 


567 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Troop conduct, 20, 190, 192, 253, 
259 

in early operations, 8 
in Korea, 89, 90, 110, 116 
in Philippines, 63 
in Vietnam, 401-02, 403, 404, 405 
Trujillo Molina, Rafael Leonidas, 202 
Truman, Harry S., 22, 164, 487 
and Chinese Civil War, 32, 37, 38 
on nation building and 

counterinsurgency, 118, 159 
Truman Doctrine, 45 
Turkey, 22, 328-29 
Twining, General Nathan F., 184 

Uncertain Trumpet, The (Taylor), 

165 

Underhill, Col. Lewis K., 12 
United Arab Republic (UAR), 184, 
187 

United Nations, in Korea, 98, 100, 
104,330 

United Nations Civil Assistance 
Command, Korea, 111 
“United States Army’s Role in 

Nation Building, The,” 449-50 
United States Information Service 
(USIS), 190,212 
United States Military Academy 
(West Point), 62, 260, 261-62, 
375, 457-58, 480 

Unity of command, 13, 18, 234, 325. 

See also Bureaucratic rivalry. 
Urban warfare, 23, 24, 300, 446 
Uruguay, 298 
U.S. Army, Pacific, 270 
U.S. Army Advisory Group in China, 
37, 39 

U.S. Army Combat Forces Journal , 

104 

U.S. Army Command and General 
Staff College (CGSC), 197, 
233,313 

Cold War studies, 197 
combating Communist 
insurgencies, 159 


U.S. Army Command and General 
Staff College (CGSC)— 
Continued 

combined arms doctrine, 231 
contingency operations education, 
196 

and counterguerrilla tactics and 
techniques, 151-52, 153, 157, 
197, 241 

and counterinsurgency instruction, 
265, 480 

exercises at, 197, 198 
“Military Operations Against 
Irregular Forces,” 168 
nuclear combat, 157 
and psychological operations, 456 
and situations short of war, 197 
use of German manual, 281/715 
U.S. Army Group, Greece, 46 
U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps, 94 
U.S. Department of the Army, 105, 
168 

U.S. Department of Defense, 159, 
238 

and counterinsurgency, 161, 260, 
478 

on Regional Assistance 
Commands, 216 
supports military promotion of 
economic development, 161 
U.S. Department of State, 238, 389, 
439, 477 

and contingency operations, 192, 
193 

and counterinsurgency training, 
260 

and issues of jurisdiction, 18 
National Interdepartmental 
Seminar, 257 
on Regional Assistance 
Commands, 216 
resists operational role, 227-28 
and situations short of war, 195 
tours of duty, 347 
U.S. Department of the Interior, 18 
U.S. Information Agency, 438, 439 


568 



Index 


U.S. Marine Corps, 278. See also 
Marine Division, 1st; Marines, 
2d. 

in China, 32 

and Combined Action Platoon 
(CAP), 399 

and counterguerrilla tactics, 109 
and counterinsurgency, 238, 399 
in Lebanon, 184-85, 186-87 
and pacification efforts, 399 
U.S. Navy, 385. See also Sixth Fleet, 
U.S. 

U.S. Southern Command, 216 
U.S. War Department, 18 

Van Fleet, Lt. Gen. James A., 59, 72 
on Greek insurrection, 51-52, 53, 
54 

and Joint U.S. Military Advisory 
and Planning Group, Greece, 
47, 48 

in Korea, 100-101 
Venezuela, 298 

Viet Cong, 309, 313, 321, 325, 378 
civilian attitude toward, 322 
employ Mao’s techniques, 305 
isolation of, 362 

South Vietnamese Army’s inability 
to contain, 322 

support from North Vietnam, 323 
sympathizers, 391 
tactics, 432 

terror campaign of, 307 
and Tet offensive, 324 
Viet Minh, 66, 68, 69, 72, 73, 309 
at Dien Bien Phu, 70 
initiate insurgency, 305 
Vietnamese National Army, 71 
Volckmann, Lt. Col. Russell W., 141, 
165, 173/715, 231, 244, 246 
on leadership, 142 
on offensive action, 138 
partisan and counter-partisan 
activity, 491 

prepares initial postwar doctrine, 
131-32, 172»1 


Volckmann, Lt. Col. Russell W.— 
Continued 

and Special Forces, 172/71 
use of drastic action, 136 

Wade, Brig. Gen. Sidney S., 188 
War and Peace in the Space Age 
(Gavin), 165 

Wedemeyer, Lt. Gen. Albert C., 38, 
41 ' 

West, Brig. Gen. Arthur L., 383 
Westmoreland, General William C., 
323,330, 451,478 
on armor, 384 
and artillery, 381, 382 
on battlefield conduct, 402 
on CAP, 399, 400 
destroying enemy’s major forces, 
371 

enclave strategy, 364 
on infiltration, 362-64 
large-unit sweeps, 373 
and MAOP program, 443 
missions of indigenous troops and 
United States, 365, 366, 369, 
370 

and “NABUCA” study, 444 
on Nixon Doctrine, 449 
offensive-defensive strategy of, 
364 

pacification issues, 390, 399, 

400 

priority of, 371 
and “REARM-STABILITY” 
program, 443 

reconnaissance and commando 
school, 376 

and saturation patrols, 370 
and security, 368, 387 
troop conduct cards, 403 
Weyand, Maj. Gen. Frederick C., 371 
Wheeler, General Earle G., 204 
White Star Mobile Training Teams, 
199 

Williams, Lt. Gen. Samuel T., 309, 
313, 327, 349 


569 


Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1942-1976 


Williams, Lt. Gen. Samuel T.— 
Continued 

importance of military power, 320 
on Maoist approach to guerrilla 
warfare, 310 
Notes on Anti-Guerrilla 
Operations, 310, 311 
on South Vietnamese troops 
performing civic action, 312, 

317 

Williamson, Brig. Gen. Ellis W., 374 
Wilson, Woodrow, 41, 205 
“Win in Vietnam” program, 265 
Winter Punitive Operation (1949-50) 
in Korea, 96 


Wolf, Charles, 436, 439 

Yarborough, Brig. Gen. William P., 
227, 230, 299 
Yemen, 184 

Yiafka , 42, 43, 48, 50, 51. See also 
Democratic People’s Army 
(Greece). 

York, Maj. Gen. Robert H., 208, 213 
Yow, Maj. Harold D., 262 
Yugoslavia and Greek insurrection, 
42, 43, 53, 54 

Zachariades, Nikos, 52, 53, 54 
Zona operations, 56 


570 



















































